![\"Wood-paneled](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/VTD-Orton-VT-art-1-1200x847.jpg\")
A new wing at Manchester\u2019s Southern Vermont Arts Center, illustrated here by the Richmond-based Birdseye architecture and building company, is set to open next summer.<\/p>\nA new wing at Manchester\u2019s Southern Vermont Arts Center, illustrated here by the Richmond-based Birdseye architecture and building company, is set to open next summer.<\/p>\n
MANCHESTER \u2014 Over the decades that Vermont Country Store owner Lyman Orton has amassed what Yankee magazine has called \u201cthe largest private collection of 20th-century Vermont art in the world,\u201d<\/a> the 83-year-old has hung his paintings at home, the office, seemingly everywhere but a single, permanent site.<\/p>\n Then Orton gathered them two years ago for a state tour that began at Manchester\u2019s Southern Vermont Arts Center.<\/p>\n \u201cThis collection should end up here,\u201d he recently recalled thinking about the arts center, \u201cso my kids don\u2019t sell it at a yard sale.\u201d<\/p>\n Orton assured he\u2019s just joking about his three sons, the third generation to run the family\u2019s multimillion-dollar retail and catalog business. But he\u2019s serious about wanting a place to share his more than 250 paintings in perpetuity. That\u2019s why he\u2019s breaking ground on a two-story addition to the arts center that\u2019s set to open next summer.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are aligned with Lyman on the vision that this should be a public resource,\u201d Amelia Wiggins, the arts center\u2019s executive director, said of showcasing the collection. \u201cWe know the beauty of this area is such a draw, and art that captures it compels both locals and visitors.\u201d<\/p>\n The new 12,000-square-foot wing is expected to cost $8.5 million, with related sitework raising the project up to nearly $10 million, according to a state land use permit. The building will be funded by a $14.5 million capital campaign that\u2019s hit 90% of its goal.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not just constructing galleries, we\u2019re creating space for freedom of expression and bold ideas,\u201d said Bob Van Degna, president of the arts center\u2019s board of trustees and, along with Orton, a top project donor.<\/p>\n \u2018What\u2019s the story behind it?\u2019<\/p>\n The wing now under construction is a full circle moment for Orton, who was 5 years old when his parents founded the Vermont Country Store in the nearby town of Weston in 1946.<\/p>\n Orton grew up in the unplugged days before the interstate and internet as artists working with oils, watercolors and woodblock ink \u201ccame up from down country\u201d to capture the landscape and lifestyles of Vermont.<\/p>\n \u201cThey didn\u2019t just pass through,\u201d he recalled in an interview. \u201cThey started living here, painted what they loved.\u201d<\/p>\n A group calling itself the Southern Vermont Artists displayed its work on the lawn of Manchester\u2019s Equinox hotel and inside the gym of the nearby Burr and Burton Academy before purchasing the property that would become the arts center in 1950.<\/p>\n Turning 20 a decade later, Orton started his own collection, not knowing he was seeding a lifelong mission to \u201crepatriate\u201d Vermont art sold and scattered over the decades across the country and around the world.<\/p>\n When choosing pieces, Orton has looked for artists such as Luigi Lucioni, whose oils and etchings appear in the Smithsonian American Art Museum<\/a>; Kyra Markham, an actress, painter and printmaker who was briefly married to the son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright; and Ogden Pleissner, nationally recognized for his Life magazine work and sporting scenes.<\/p>\n But Orton has ultimately focused on the art itself. Take Rockwell Kent\u2019s 1926 depiction of Sunderland\u2019s Union Church. Many see the canvas for its creator, whose works are displayed at the National Gallery of Art<\/a>. Orton has appreciated it for memorializing the place his great-grandfather helped build.<\/p>\n \u201cI look for paintings that have a \u2018there\u2019 there,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat is it? Where is it? What\u2019s the story behind it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Art accessible to everybody\u2019<\/p>\n When the collector debuted the traveling show \u201cFor the Love of Vermont: The Lyman Orton Collection\u201d in 2023, he grouped both minor and master works into themes such as \u201cMaking A Living,\u201d which pictured sugaring, slate quarrying and sawmills, and \u201cComing Together,\u201d which portrayed families, fairs and ice fishing.<\/p>\n Amid paintings of barns and covered bridges, Orton has an affinity for depictions of clotheslines, be it Leo Blake\u2019s circa 1940 \u201cSummer Laundry\u201d or Mitzi Goward\u2019s \u201cOut to Dry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is nothing more consistent with a Vermonter\u2019s heritage of practicality, frugality and common sense than hanging the washing outside,\u201d he said of the latter work. \u201cSunshine and the breeze are free.\u201d<\/p>\n Similarly, Orton traded discreet museum labels for large-print signs more familiar in a school or senior center.<\/p>\n \u201cThat makes the art accessible to everybody, not just experts and Chardonnay sippers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/VTD-Orton-VT-art-2-1200x907.jpeg\")
Vermont Country Store owner Lyman Orton has collected more than 250 paintings of everything from covered bridges to clotheslines. Photo courtesy of Lyman Orton<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/VTD-Orton-VT-art-3-1200x900.jpg\")
A sign announces the construction of a new wing at Manchester\u2019s Southern Vermont Arts Center. Photo by Kevin O\u2019Connor\/VTDigger<\/p>\n