Mystery solved for painting donated to Wisner Library

Warwick - On Feb. 9, the Albert Wisner Public Library hosted an official dedication of two paintings donated by Nell Rothschild. One painting was of a local farm scene by the late Dr. Donald B. Hull of Warwick. And for more than 30 years, the painting, now on display behind the library’s front desk, hung in the home David and Nell Rothschild. However, the plaque on the frame did not name the farm and, during that time, no one knew exactly where the barn in the painting was located. Hull had been president of the Warwick Art League and a founder of the Ridgewood Art Institute. His paintings of Warwick landscapes from the 1950s to 1986 grace the walls of hundreds of homes and institutions here, nationally and overseas. During the dedication ceremony, his son, Warwick historian Richard Hull, Ph.D., explained that his father did many works of local barns, believing that in the years ahead many of these beautiful structures would be demolished. “He wanted to preserve the heritage of agriculture in Warwick by capturing these rural images on canvas,” said Hull. The younger Hull also admitted that he and his brother and sisters could not identify the barn in the painting. One guest at the dedication, Seymour Gordon, a person knowledgeable about local history, suggested that it might be the Eurich farm but that those barns had been destroyed by fire. Roger Gavan, who was covering the event for The Warwick Advertiser, recalled that he had written a business story about a farm near Distillery and Jessup roads and that the farm in the painting bore a strong resemblance. Later that afternoon, Gavan drove out to Jessup Road to revisit the farm and confirm his suspicion. The longtime Advertiser correspondent took a photograph from the approximate viewpoint of the painting and e-mailed it that same evening to Hull for his opinion. He soon replied that a decades old mystery had finally been solved. “Good sleuthing,” he said.