May 21, 2013

In his latest Back Story post, Sun reporter Frederick N. Rasmussen looks back at the Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival at Druid Hill Park — which was resurrected as the Art Outside festival Sunday after a 40-year hiatus.

Take a spin through memory lane with these retro photos from the arts festival.

: May 25, 1970: Artist Ginny Griggs watches the art watchers from beneath her umbrella. (Richard Childress/Baltimore Sun)

: May 25, 1970: Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival. (Richard Childress/Baltimore Sun)

: May 22, 1967: Spectators at the Druid Hill Park Outdoor Festival. (William L Laforce Jr./Baltimore Sun)

: May 18, 1964: On closer inspection, this production turns out to be an authentic work by the Department of transit and traffic. (Clarence Garrett/Baltimore Sun)

: May 18, 1964: On closer inspection, this production turns out to be an authentic work by the Department of transit and traffic. Someone had placed a pricetag on it. (Clarence Garrett/Baltimore Sun)

: June 6, 1963: Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival. (William H. Mortimer/Baltimore Sun)

: May 20, 1963: Art lovers study the works on display around Druid Hill Park lake at the Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival. Nearly 400 artist participated. (William H. Mortimer/Baltimore Sun)

: May 21, 1962: Dede Scherer with her “fur” at the Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival at Druid Hill Park. She poses with Theodore, her cat. (Frank Gardina/Baltimore Sun)

: May 22, 1961: Lolly Garfield, one of many painters, sits and smiles to a passersby while her works hang on a railing around Druid Hill Lake. Although not a prize winner in yesterday’s affair, she appears to have had a pleasant time. (Ralph Robinson/Baltimore Sun)

: May 17, 1960: Mrs. Helen Goldman starts home with her abstract. (Edward Nolan /Baltimore Sun)

: May 17, 1960: Mrs. Dorothy K. Mudgett hangs her art work of oil and water colors. (Edward Nolan/Baltimore Sun)

: May 19, 1959: Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival. (Ralph Robinson/Baltimore Sun)

: May 19, 1959: Larry O’Toole drawing pastel of little girl. (Ralph Robinson/Baltimore Sun)

: May 19 1959: Mrs. Catherine Lessner in her palette hat. This is the actual palette she uses for her paintings. (Ralph Robinson/Baltimore Sun)

: May 19, 1958: Diane St. Clair 2 yrs old seems puzzled over modernistic painting at the Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival. (Albert D Cochran/Baltimore Sun)

: May 14, 1956: Spectators watch intently as Michel Toussaint applies finishing touches to one of his paintings. Thousands visited Druid Hill Park yesterday for fourth annual Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival. (Walter McCardell/Baltimore Sun)

: May 17, 1955: Mary Atherton with exhibit in background at the Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival. (Ellis Malashuk/Baltimore Sun)

: May 16, 1955: Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival. (Baltimore Sun)

: May 16, 1954: Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival. (George H Cook/Baltimore Sun)

: May 5, 1954: These ladies have exchanged their artist brushes for the type used by housepainters as they prepare a poster for the 2nd Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival to be held in Druid Hill park on May 16. Last year the banks of the park lake looked more like the banks of the Seine as 200 exhibitors displayed their work along half mile of railings on the lake shore. Poster painters (left to right) Mrs. Amalie Rothschild, Mrs. Gertrude Michel and Mrs. Cecile Baer. (William Klender/Baltimore Sun)

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Back Story: Arts patron revives outdoor festival in Druid Hill
By Frederick N. Rasmussen, The Baltimore Sun
5:18 p.m. EDT, May 16, 2013

Barbara Shapiro’s love affair with Druid Hill Park dates to her childhood, when she passed through it daily on the way from her Ashburton home to old School 49 on Cathedral Street.

And even when construction of Druid Park Lake Drive in the 1940s and the Jones Falls Expressway in the 1960s removed many of its grand entrances, Shapiro never lost her affection for the park.

“I do think construction of the Jones Falls did separate the city from the park,” Shapiro, 78, said the other day.

She also recalled attending the city’s annual one-day Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival during the 1950s until its demise in the 1970s, held on the periphery of the Druid Hill Park Reservoir.

She missed the event, and after a nearly 40-year hiatus, decided to resurrect it a year and a half ago. She rechristened it with a new name, Art Outside, and it will open at 11 a.m. Sunday and continue until 4:30 p.m.

“Rain or shine,” said Shapiro, a longtime Roland Park resident. She and her husband, Sig, are well-known patrons of the arts.

She wanted to couple the juried art show, which was founded in 1953 by Baltimore artist Amalie Rothschild, with a celebration of the 650-acre reservoir, completed in 1871 and featuring a 119-foot-high earthen dam.

During the show’s heyday, it wasn’t uncommon to have 300 artists displaying their work as crowds of upwards of 40,000 strolled through the exhibition.

Shapiro is reviving Rothschild’s idea of the Paris or New York sidewalk art exhibition so that artists can hang or lean their work against the railing that rings the reservoir.

Retro photos from the Baltimore Outdoor Art Festival

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