REWIND: July 15, 2023
Belgian Painter Edward P. Buyck
and his Connection to Glens Falls
By Teri Rogers
A dramatic and moving watercolor reprint graces the stairway at the Warren County Historical Society. It depicts an historic scene that could very well have taken place on the banks of the Hudson River at the turn of the twentieth century: men using a peavey to pull logs from the river, sawing some, and loading them onto a horse and wagon for transport. What this painting portrays is perhaps one of the most famous aspect of Glens Falls and Warren County’s history.
The Buyck painting on the stairwell at the Historical Society
The information hung with our painting
Upon further inquiry as to the creator of this striking piece of art, we discovered that it was painted by Edward P. Buyck. And, just who is he?
Edward P. Buyck de Morkhoven, revered today as a renowned landscape painter, was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1889. He served in the Belgian forces during World War I, was wounded, and immigrated to the United States where he enlisted in the Army and served at Camp Mead and the Watervliet Arsenal. He became a US citizen in 1918.
Buyck’s career as an artist and painter was not interrupted by his military service. He created
recruiting posters for the military and patriotic posters for the Red Cross and the YMCA. And, he drew political cartoons satirizing the Kaiser.
Edward P. Buyck
After WWI, Buyck lived in Glens Falls, Warren County, and it was during this period of his life
that he painted one of his most notable works, “A Field in Flanders,” which hangs in the Museum de Luxembourg in Paris.
His artistic portfolio over his lifetime included not only historical landscapes (like the two aforementioned) but also racehorses, and prominent
politicians and statesmen like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. One of his historic scenes of old
Albany once hung in the Munger-DeWitt Clinton Hotel, in Albany. He created the ornamental plaster designs that adorn the Herkimer Theater, in Herkimer, NY.
His interest in history also led him in 1930 to serve on the committee that developed historic markers to commemorate the War of 1812 route from Big Sandy Creek to Sackett’s Harbor of the frigate Superior’s rope cable. He had connections to central New York and to the Catskills throughout his life, and, notably, to northern New York.
Buyck was known as a great lover of animals. While living in Warren County, he raised silver
foxes at the massive Black Mountain Fox Ranch in North River — employment that provided
inspiration for many of his paintings, as well as affording him time to pursue his craft.
He married a landscape artist and interior designer, Mary Willard Vine, in 1920, and they
resided in Slingerlands, near Albany, for the rest of their lives. Buyck died at St. Peter’s Hospital
in Albany in 1960 at the age of 71.
Warren County can boast of many famous artists, and Edward P. Buyck belongs among them.
Sources:
Albany Institute of History and Art
The Arkell Gallery at Canajoharie,
