On Thursday, June 13, the Hudson River Museum will host Gilded Splendor: A Hudson River Museum Gala. This year’s event celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Museum’s stewardship of our historic home, Glenview, and honors three outstanding honorees: NewYork-Presbyterian Westchester, Janet T. Langsam, CEO ArtsWestchester, and artist Julia Santos Solomon.
Julia Santos Solomon is an accomplished, interdisciplinary American artist, creating paintings, sculpture, and digital media for more than forty years. Born in the Dominican Republic, her vision has shaped generations of successful Latinx artists. Santos Solomon’s art-making is fueled by cultural heritage, transforming a personal narrative into the universal for the next generation through big, bold, expressive strokes.
The HRM has a longstanding and impactful relationship with Santos Solomon. She served as the HRM’s Teaching Artist-in-Residence in 2020–21, leading a series of workshops that drew on her belief that where you come from impacts how you see the world. Santos Solomon’s work is in the Museum’s permanent collection and was included in the HRM exhibitions Women to the Fore (September 18, 2020–January 3, 2021); Matrix: Prints by Women Artists, 1960–1990 (October 21, 2022–April 2, 2023); and Order / Reorder: Experiments with Collections (June 17, 2022–September 3, 2023). She has been an insightful and compassionate collaborator in the Museum’s professional development for teachers, including programming with art teachers in the Yonkers Public Schools.
Santos Solomon lived in Yonkers, Hastings-on Hudson, and later in Irvington where she and her husband raised their family. She now resides and has a working studio in Woodstock, New York. She earned her bachelor of fine arts degree in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, with coursework at Brown University. Santos Solomon studied in Rome, Italy, as a participant in the RISD European Honors Program. She also studied at the Art Students League and earlier at the High School of Art and Design in New York City. A founding faculty member of the Altos de Chavón School of Design, the first school of design in the Dominican Republic, Santos Solomon remains actively involved with the artistic community. She has also taught at Parsons School of Design in New York and Marist College in Poughkeepsie.
Santos Solomon is represented in the permanent collections of the Hudson River Museum; the Latino Art Museum in Pomona, CA; the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; University Museum at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Leon-Litton Collection; and the Altos de Chavon Foundation in La Romana, Dominican Republic. She has been a grant recipient of the Tiffany Foundation. Her work also appears in the Smithsonian American Art Archives and the City College Dominican Studies Archives. Santos Solomon’s art is represented in private collections domestically and abroad and has been featured in The New York Times, National Public Radio, State of the Arts, New Art International, Diálogo Studies Journal, Acrylic Revolution, and Acrylic Illuminations.
Learn more about the upcoming gala.
Photo: Julia Santos Solomon, HRM Gala Honoree, with Director and CEO Masha Turchinsky. George Pejoves Photography.