“Grrrrrrrrrrr!!”

This rather arresting painting once spent a summer in Ridgefield and  now resides in a major museum. But almost as interesting as the picture itself is the man who took this photograph  used in publicizing it.

In the summer of 1983 (May 22 to Sept. 11), the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, as it was then called, staged an exhibit called “Changes 1960-1982.” Among the works exhibited was “Grrrrrrrrrrr!!” this  oil-and-magna on canvas by the noted American artist, Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997).

The Aldrich described the exhibit as “a survey of the development of 13 of America’s most important artists.” Indeed, it was a who’s who of contemporary artists that consisted of, besides Lichtenstein, three works each from Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol.

“Grrrrrrrrrrr!!” was painted in 1965, inspired by a panel Lichtenstein saw in a 1962 comic book, “Our Fighting Forces,” published by what is now DC Comics. The artist apparently liked the painting enough that he never sold it and instead bequeathed it to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, where it remains today. The museum used it for promotional posters for its 1993 exhibition, “Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective.”

Lichtenstein had earlier done another work of a dog, inspired by “Our Fighting Forces,” called “Arrrrrff.” At a 1996 Christie’s auction, it sold for $420,500.

To promote its exhibit, the Aldrich sent to The Ridgefield Press this black-and-white photograph. (The painting itself is mostly black-and-white, except for the background of the  Grrrrrrrrrrr!!, which is yellow.)

The picture was taken by Rudolph Burckhardt (1914-1999), a noted Swiss-American photographer and filmmaker, who has been the subject of a number of major exhibits himself. Unlike most mass-produced publicity pictures, Burckhardt’s was printed on heavy stock and hand-labeled on the back, “Lichtenstein #160,” presumably by Burckhardt himself, above his stamped photo credit.

Burckhardt, who taught many years at the University of Pennsylvania, was known for his pictures of urban and country life, especially his scenes of New York City in the 1930s and 40s. 

He marked his 85th birthday on Aug. 1, 1999, by jumping into a lake on his property in Searsmont, Maine, and drowning. 

This photograph was in the archives of The Ridgefield Press and is being donated to the Ridgefield Historical Society, along with many hundreds of other Ridgefield-related pictures.

Larry Aldrich: 

Champion of Art and Open Space

Art and open space — they seem little connected. But Larry Aldrich championed both. 

The noted fashion designer brought a world-class art museum to Ridgefield and also gave the town Aldrich Park, 37 acres of prime open space, the home of both nature trails and one of the town’s first Little League fields. 

Born in 1906, Aldrich grew up in Manhattan and began working in the clothing industry when he was 18. He founded a women's clothing firm in 1927 when he was only 21, but his name did start appearing on the labels until the 1940s. 

“My dress collections were an immediate success and sold in all the best stores,” he told The Ridgefield Press in 1996 when he turned 90. 

“Larry Aldrich clothing was stylish, but not fashion-forward,” said the Vintage Fashion Guild.  “Styles from Paris were adapted to have a more conservative sensibility.”

The New York Times said “his women's clothing collections were reviewed alongside the likes of Claire McCardell, Geoffrey Beene, Mollie Parnis, and Pauline Trigere, and the dresses fought for the spotlight and sales with Paris designers. He saw a natural connection between fashion and art, and in 1965 he even produced a dress collection inspired by Op Art.”
He was considered a leader among his fashion peers, and was president of the New York Couture Group, described by The Times as “two dozen leading makers of high fashion apparel.”

Aldrich retired from the clothing business in 1972 to focus on developing his art museum, now called the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.  

His wife, Winifred, a talented artist, helped spark an interest in contemporary art and he began collecting in the late 1930s, eventually becoming a central figure in the New York City art scene. The

Aldriches moved to Nod Road in 1939 and by 1960, were running out of space for their art collection.

In 1963, Mr. Aldrich acquired three acres and a Main Street house that had once been The Old Hundred, a 19th Century country store, to serve as a museum for his collection. At first he thought of calling the museum “Old Hundred,” but decided the name did not reflect the contemporary theme of the art he would exhibit.

The Aldrich Museum opened there in 1964 and has expanded three times over the years, including the erection of a new exhibition building opened in 2004. 

Over the years, Aldrich and his museum  championed countless new artists by showing their work. “Almost all the well-known American artists you can think of have been seen here at early stages of their careers,” Aldrich said in 1986, “among them Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella and Cy Twombly.”

The Aldrich no longer owns a collection of art, and instead devotes its resources to exhibiting contemporary works and providing  educational programs.

“The museum is one of Connecticut's true treasures and a living example of Larry Aldrich's vision and commitment to the arts and to his community,” said University of Connecticut Chancellor Mark Emmert when he awarded Aldrich an honorary degree in 1996. 

That June, Aldrich donated $50,000 to the acquisition of more open space in Ridgefield. 

“It’s all part of my birthday celebration,” the good-humored philanthropist said, “because I'll never be 90 again.”

He died in 2001 at the age of 95. 

Joshua King: 

Soldier and Statesman

King Lane, the short road from Main Street to High Ridge, recalls one of Ridgefield’s most prominent families from just after the Revolution into the 20th Century. The Kings made their mark on local and regional history by producing notable soldiers and businessmen.

The King family in Ridgefield began in 1783 when Joshua King of Bridgewater, “state of Massachusetts Bay,” and James Dole of Albany, N.Y.,  paid 150 pounds to Hezekiah Johnson of Wallingford to buy a house, barn, and six acres on the east side of Main Street, opposite what is now King Lane. There the two, who had met in the Revolution, established a store, called King and Dole (later “Old Hundred”) in what is today the second story of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum’s office building.

Joshua King was born in 1758 in Braintree, Mass. In 1779, he joined the Continental Army, initially as a cornet and later serving as a lieutenant in the Second Regiment of the Light Dragoons. 

During the war he was stationed near the Connecticut-New York line. “It was while in service here,” a family history says, “that there appeared one morning at headquarters an adjutant and four men belonging to the Connecticut Militia, having in charge a prisoner who looked somewhat like a

gentleman in reduced circumstances. He had on a purple coat with gold lace, worn threadbare, a small-brimmed tarnished beaver hat, nankeen small-clothes, and long white top-boots. His hair was tied in a queue, with a long black band, and his clothes were travel-stained.

“Lt. King, to whom the prisoner was delivered, saw at once that he had to do with a person of more than ordinary importance, and his own barber coming in to shave him, the same service was offered to the stranger and gladly accepted.

“When the ribbon was taken from his hair, the lieutenant observed that it was full of powder which, with other circumstances, confirmed his previous impression.

“After being shaved the prisoner asked the privilege of going to bed till his linen and small-clothes could be washed, but this was made unnecessary by Lt. King, offering a change of clothing, which was accepted.

“These little courtesies so won the confidence of the prisoner that he revealed to Lt. King the fact that he was none other than Major John Andre, the adjutant-general of the British army, and that he had been arrested inside American lines. Asking for a pen and paper, he proceeded to write to General Washington, but before midnight, orders came from the commander-in-chief to forward the prisoner at once to headquarters, and this was also done under charge of Lt. King.”

The story of Lt. King’s brief acquaintance with Benedict Arnold’s spy-mate is told in a letter written by King in 1817 to a friend, and reprinted in Teller’s, Rockwell’s, and in part in Bedini’s histories of Ridgefield. The King family history, written by Henry P. Phelps, adds that Lt. King “remained at headquarters till the execution and even walked with him to the gallows on which the brave and gallant Englishman met his shameful death.”

Sometimes addressed as General King because he held that rank in the postwar Connecticut militia, King became acquainted with Ridgefield during the war, liked the town, and decided to settle here. 

In 1784, a year after his arrival, he married one of the highest-placed women in Ridgefield.

Anne Ingersoll was the daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll, second minister of the First Congregational Church, and sister of Jonathan Ingersoll Jr., who was to become lieutenant governor of Connecticut from 1816 to 1823.

As a merchant he was evidently quite successful, for Lt. King was soon a wealthy man. (Dole dropped out of the business soon after it started.) King bought much land all over Ridgefield – he became perhaps the largest private property owner in town in his time; certainly he held more than any other non-farmer. 

He was also a sort of one-man bank, dealing out mortgages to many residents. He also had interests in several mills in town.

His house near the corner of Main Street and King Lane was considered one of the finest in town. When it burned down July 28, 1889, The New York Times described it as “the grandest old mansion in the village.” It was quickly replaced by the current house, modeled after the original but larger, which was placed much farther back from the road.  

Lt. King served several terms representing Ridgefield in the General Assembly and was a member of the 1818 convention that framed the modern Connecticut Constitution. 

Another noteworthy claim to his fame, locally at least, is the fact that Joshua King was Ridgefield’s first postmaster, a position that was once considered a mark of respect, equal almost to a judgeship. King was appointed in 1793 — four years after the Constitution officially authorized a post office department for the new United States of America. (Between then and 1983, every

Ridgefield postmaster was a resident of the town. Since then, when the job became civil service, none of Ridgefield’s postmasters has lived here.)

Joshua and Anne King had 10 children – four sons and six daughters. Samuel G. Goodrich (Peter Parley) described them in his “Recollections of A Lifetime”: “All reached maturity and constituted one of the comeliest groups I have ever known. The girls all married, save one; three of the sons – among the handsomest men of their time – professed bachelorism; a proof of what all shrewd observers know, that handsome men, spontaneously enjoying the smiles of the sex, feel no need of resigning their liberty, while ugly men are forced to capitulate on bended knees and accept the severe conditions of matrimony as the only happy issue out of their solitude.” 

This, from the son of a minister!

Lt. King died in 1839, a year after his wife. 

Several generations of Kings continued to use the Main Street estate until the early 1900s.