One morning not long ago, Janet Langsam, our amazing cover artist and former columnist for Venü, was sitting at her kitchen table having breakfast with Tracy Fitzpatrick, director of the Neuberger Museum of Art.
As they talked, Fitzpatrick noticed a striking abstract painting hanging on the wall nearby. Bands of color stretched across the canvas, intersected by textured elements and bold, jagged shapes.
She paused and asked a simple question.
“Who’s the artist?”
Langsam smiled.
“I am.”
The answer surprised Fitzpatrick. She had known Langsam for years through her work as the longtime CEO of ArtsWestchester, where Langsam spent more than three decades championing artists and shaping the region’s cultural landscape. But she had never known that Langsam herself had once been an artist.
What Fitzpatrick didn’t realize at the time was that the painting she had just admired was part of a body of work Langsam had created more than fifty years earlier—before she set aside her own studio practice to dedicate her life to supporting other artists.
Those canvases had been rolled off their frames and packed away in storage for decades.
Only recently had she opened the boxes again.
Janet Langsam (American, b. 1935). Horizons One, 1969–1972. Acrylic on raw canvas. Courtesy of the artist.
For thirty-three years, Janet Langsam served as CEO of ArtsWestchester, New York State’s largest private, not-for-profit cultural service organization. Regarded as one of New York’s most influential art advocates, her achievements speak volumes about her mission as a changemaker in the world of art. Langsam believed art should not exist only in museums or galleries. It should live where people live—on streets, in schools, hospitals, and public spaces where it could reach people who might never otherwise encounter it.
Under her leadership, ArtsWestchester helped bring public art projects to communities throughout the county. One of the most visible examples is the public art program on the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, created in partnership with the New York Thruway Authority. Sculptures and murals installed along the bridge transformed the infrastructure itself into a cultural destination.
Over the years, Langsam also helped develop artist residencies in schools, housing developments, and mental health facilities. Contemporary art installations appeared in hospitals, shopping centers, and residential communities—places where art could offer reflection, comfort, and joy. Her commitment to connecting culture and community also informed her work as Assistant Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. There, she pioneered a program that transformed vacant, city-owned properties into cultural spaces and housing for artists—an early example of how the arts can help revitalize neighborhoods.
A proud Queens native, it’s no wonder that she also helped change the cultural landscape of her own borough. At a time when Queens was the only borough in New York City without a major art museum, she played a central role in securing support and funding to establish the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Park. She went on to serve as both a founder and Chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees, helping guide the institution in its early years. Her leadership earned widespread recognition, including honors as one of 914INC magazine’s Most Influential Women and among Westchester’s Top CEOs.
Tireless in her public efforts to support the arts, Janet kept her personal calling as a talented, multifaceted artist out of the spotlight.
Artist Janet Langsam working in her studio circa 1970. Photo: Janet Langsam.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, Langsam created mixed-media collages and large format paintings that were exhibited in New York galleries and attracted attention from The New York Times. During the Cold War, the United States Information Agency even toured her work through several European countries as part of a program promoting American culture and artistic freedom.
At the time, Langsam was a young mother of three living in Queens, balancing family life with a growing creative practice. But the political upheavals of the 1960s shaped her worldview. In the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, she felt an increasing pull toward public service and civic engagement. She wanted to help shape society directly—supporting civil rights, advancing gender equity, and promoting peace.
When an opportunity arose to join the administration of New York City Mayor John Lindsay, Langsam made a life-changing decision. She packed away her canvases.
“I put my paintings aside, took them off their frames, rolled them up, and stored them for my entire administrative career,” she says.
Her administrative career included stints as Deputy Cultural Affairs Commissioner in New York City and president and CEO of the Boston Center for the Arts.
For decades, the paintings remained untouched. Until now.
Today, Langsam, who has a passion for working in a large-scale is thrilled to be showing four of her monumental canvases at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers. The museum has a suite of beautiful new galleries that look out on the magnificent Hudson River. “It is a perfect venue to view my works that were inspired by horizons that were part of my growing up in a beach town on the Rockaway Peninsula.” The four abstract paintings shown together for the first time, are gentle reminders of Langsam’s reverence for nature and the environment. The paintings will be on view through June 21 in the Community and Partnership Gallery.
“It is an honor to have the opportunity to display these works by Janet Langsam, a true pillar of the Westchester and New York City arts communities,” states Laura Vookles, Chair of the HRM Curatorial Department.
“For millennia, people have looked into the distance and found the horizon, grounding themselves in the presence of earth meeting sky. Shown together for the first time, these paintings create a visual commonality in which we can all find deep meaning.”
The horizon—where sky meets ocean—became an enduring visual reference point in her work. Many of her paintings and collages divide the canvas into layered bands of color, echoing that meeting line between sea and sky.
“I think of it as very comforting,” she says. “Because it never ended. Every new day would bring a new horizon.”
Her work also reflected the experimental spirit of the 1960s art world. Influenced by the irreverence of the Dada movement, she incorporated found materials and everyday objects into her collages—magazine images, household items, supermarket posters, and even children’s toys.
Detail of Toy Destroy, circa 1965, paint and toys on Masonite, 24 × 30 in. (61 × 76.2 cm) on view in Janet Langsam: Improbable Feminist, Neuberger Museum of Art, Spring/Summer 2025.
Growing up with a father in the textile business also shaped her artistic language. Surrounded by fabric swatches and patterns, she developed an early appreciation for texture, layering, and the interplay of materials. Collage became central to her creative process, allowing her to experiment with composition before translating those ideas into larger canvases. The rediscovery of her early work came unexpectedly after retirement.
How did she feel when she opened up the boxes where she secreted her work so long ago?
“I was thrilled. I was thrilled for two reasons. First of all, they were alive and well, and the colors and everything were just as I had left them. But the other piece of it that really tickled me was, even though they were done in the late 60s and early 70s, they seemed very relevant to the trends in today’s art world. That was really the best part of it,” she said.
When Langsam finally revisited the paintings she had stored away decades earlier, many required restoration after so many years in storage.
Divine intervention came in the person of Kristin Patterson, founder and principal of Patterson Fine Art Conservation, who had a studio down the hall from Langsam‘s studio at ArtsWestchester. When she saw Langsam’s work, she offered her advice and expertise to the task of restoring and cleaning the canvases.
“They all needed cleaning and restretching,” she says. “But once that was done, they looked as good as new.”
Their renewed life quickly caught the attention of Tracy Fitzpatrick at the Neuberger Museum of Art.
When Fitzpatrick later organized an exhibition of Langsam’s work titled Janet Langsam: Improbable Feminist, she noted how surprising the discovery was even for people who had worked alongside Langsam for years.
Installation image of Janet Langsam: Improbable Feminist. Neuberger Museum of Art, Spring/Summer 2025. Photo: Lynda Shenkman Curtis.
“I think there are people in the community who have known her for decades and had no idea she was ever an artist,” Fitzpatrick said. “What’s fascinating is that her artistic practice clearly informed her work as a cultural leader and arts administrator. It’s just that nobody knew.”
Even more remarkable was what happened next. Langsam returned to the studio. Now, at age 90, just two short years into her retirement, the artist in her is stepping back into the spotlight, shining a spotlight on the power art has to change lives.
“I was very elated that I could still paint,” she says. “It was like I didn’t skip a beat. I did about maybe 25 or 30 new collages, large ones, to see if I still had what it takes. My oldest daughter is also an artist, and she teaches painting and drawing at Rutgers University. I asked her, what she thought of my work and she said to me, ‘do 20 of them, and then I’ll tell you.’”
She liked what she saw, as did the viewers who are now rediscovering her work. Recently, Langsam’s work caught the attention of Masha Turchinsky, CEO and Director of the Hudson River Museum in Westchester, which resulted in the current exhibition at the museum— Horizons: Paintings by Janet Langsam. Now walking through the exhibition, visitors will encounter bold colors, layered textures, and dynamic shapes.
In the past, collage became central to her creative process, allowing her to experiment with structure and color in small formats before translating those ideas into larger canvases. Her latest works continue her passion for collages, giving her the freedom to express her thoughts and feelings as she chooses and explode them on canvas.
“Most of the collages that I did back in the 60s and 70s were in a square shape with a horizon line, more or less like the painting divided. The canvas was always divided. What I’m trying to do now is break open from the square, making my work a lot more sculptural.”
“When I did the exhibition, I was asked what my work was all about. And I realized that my interest really came from my growing up at the beach. In every season, we would go out to the beach, even in the cold, all year round. Watching the sun and the ocean and the reflection of the Earth was really something that moved me.”
Janet Langsam at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, New York.
Her sentiments, like her work, radiate optimism. Her cover painting, Horizons Three, is one of four past works that celebrate and soothe the soul, rejuvenate the spirit with hope and happiness, gifts from the artist who has always led with her heart.
“I believe that we need to do whatever we can to bring some light into the lives of all people. And the arts are a big part of it and are very important. We really have to think positively.”
But just as compelling as the artwork itself are the stories behind it.
Langsam’s reflections connect her art to moments throughout her life: growing up during wartime, raising a family, navigating the cultural upheavals of the 1960s, and ultimately dedicating decades to supporting other artists.
There is something quietly telling about Langsam’s return to art.
For most of her life, she dedicated her energy to creating opportunities for other artists—building institutions, launching public art programs, and helping bring creativity into the everyday lives of thousands of people. Her own paintings, meanwhile, remained tucked away in storage, unseen even by many of the colleagues who worked beside her for decades.
Now, more than fifty years after she first set them aside, those canvases have resurfaced at the very moment when Langsam finally has time to return to the studio herself. The artist who spent a lifetime advocating for others is once again making work of her own.
Looking at the work now, she sees it as part of a larger journey—one that includes not only her own paintings, but also the communities and artists she helped nurture.
“The work is all part of my history,” she says. “I hope people get a sense of my worldview.”
Then she smiles.
“This is just me,” she says. “Just a beach kid from the Rockaways.” ☐
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