Westover Exhibiting

Osinski Portraits Of Women Swimmers

MIDDLEBURY — Christine Osinski will be exhibiting photographs in the Schumacher Gallery at Westover School from October 7 through December 1. The exhibit will feature portraits of women swimmers, both young swimmers and women who have been in a swimming group at a YMCA pool on Staten Island, New York, since 1984.

For the past six years, Ms Osinski has photographed people who live in New York City and is currently completing a long-term, book-length project, “Drawn to Water,” about the women’s swimming group. Alice Robinson, the founder of the group, just turned 80 and still swims.

“I feel that I am in a landscape of extraordinary beauty that few people notice, a society of women who have created a gliding, floating world of humor and grace,” Ms Osinski said. “Pictures of women in bathing suits are loaded issues in our culture: young women usually appear as objects of desire and older women largely remain unseen.”

Ms Osinski’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Columbus Museum of Art, Alice Austen House Museum, Dallas Women’s Museum, The Katonah Museum, The Bronx Council of the Arts, PS1, and Light Gallery, among other national venues. It has also been seen in China, Russia, New Zealand, and in other countries around the world.

Permanent public collections holding her photographs include, among others, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of the City of New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Smithsonian Institute and the New York Public Library. Ms Osinski’s work has been reviewed and published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Art New England, The Village Voice, DoubleTake and many other journals and books.

The exhibit may be viewed daily from 12:30 to 5 pm when school is in session. The Schumacher Gallery is located in Westover’s Performing Arts Center, accessible from the school’s main entrance at 1237 Whittemore Road (Route 188) on The Green in Middlebury. Westover School is an independent, college-preparatory, boarding and day school for girls in grades 9 through 12. More information is available by calling 203-758-2423.