Opus 40 History
Late 19th Century - Present
Quarrying on the site where Harvey Fite will later create Opus 40. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, the areas at the foot of the Catskill Mountains were the site of bluestone cutting and quarrying, supplying the stones which paved the streets and sidewalks of Kingston,…Read More
Harvey Fite is born on Christmas Day, 1903, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, second son to Tom, a carpenter, and Floy Ruffner Fite. Six years later, his family moves to Texas, where he will live for the next 17 years. Growing up, young Harvey is drawn to the arts. He watches his father,…Read More
Harvey Fite in a 1939 production of Wuthering Heights. Photo courtesy of Bard Archives & Special Collections. Fite joins the Maverick Theater at the arts colony in Woodstock, NY established by the writer Hervey White, who will become a close friend. From there, he spends a…Read More
During the 1931 season, Fite has an epiphany that will change his path from theater to sculpture: “During theatrical days I sat one afternoon in the costume room awaiting a fitting. The seamstress tossed an empty spool from the machine into the waste basket. Being caught with my pants off,…Read More
Harvey Fite teaching at Bard. Photo courtesy of Bard Archives & Special Collections. St. Stephen’s, now affiliated with Columbia University, has changed its curriculum to Liberal Arts and its name to Bard College. Fite is invited to return as a faculty member, to teach drama, and,…Read More
Sculpture by Corrado Vigni (Opere di Corrado Vigni, valutazionearte.it/artisti) Corrado Vigni with one of his sculptures. (19th Century Italian Art, https://www.ottocento.it/) In both 1935 and 1936, Harvey Fite travelled to Florence to study with sculptor Corrado Vigni (1888 – 1956). Vigni was…Read More
Harvey Fite is renting a cabin at the Maverick when he decides he wants to put down more permanent roots. Hervey White doesn’t want to sell so Fite finds a 12-acre parcel of woodland surrounding an abandoned bluestone quarry in nearby High Woods, Saugerties. It’s known by locals as “Benny…Read More
Fite receives an invitation from the Carnegie Institute to help with the restoration of ancient Mayan ruins in Copan, a city in Western Honduras, that flourished from approximately 300 BCE to 900 CE. Given the title of Technical Practitioner, he brings his insights as a sculptor to reconstructing the Grand…Read More
With hundred-year-old beams and lumber from a barn he dismantles and trucks up from Princeton, NJ, Fite begins construction on his house on the eastern lip of the quarry. He creates a large two-story studio attached to a simple bachelor quarters without plumbing or electricity. The kitchen and living areas…Read More
Fite starts clearing the rubble and overgrowth from his quarry. Adapting by trial and error the Mayan stone building techniques, he begins to create a structure which utilizes the properties of the stone, follows the contours of the quarry, echoes the structure of its mountain backdrop, and works toward the…Read More
Fite working on The Bather in Penning’s studio. Harvey Fite begins work on The Bather, one of his first large-scale bluestone sculptures. He starts carving in the studio at of friend and mentor Tomas Penning, and finishes it once he has completed his home studio back in…Read More
Teaching himself as he goes, Fite employs the techniques of dry stone masonry, or dry key construction, the ancient building method that he observed while working in Copan. The process of dry key construction involves laying flat pieces of stone, one on top of another, with large stone “keys” placed…Read More
A portrait of Barbara by her father, the accomplished painter Frank P. Fairbanks. At a party in Woodstock, Harvey meets Barbara Fairbanks Richards who has recently moved to the area with her two toddlers, Jonathan and Tad Richards. Barbara grew up in Rome, the daughter of…Read More
Harvey Fite begins carving the series of large bluestone sculptures that he will display on his quarry gallery. His concept is a humanistic theme of the Family of Man. The first in the series is a half ton priestess figure entitled Flame. It is intended, he says, “to discuss civilizations. The…Read More
Harvey and Barbara are married at St Dunstan’s Church, in Woodstock. Their reception is at Wilgus’s General Store in High Woods, where much of their courtship took place at Saturday night square dances. The new family moves into Fite’s house which he begins to expand with additional bedrooms and electricity…Read More
The first known article on Fite’s creation is by his Woodstock friend, Henry Morton Robinson (author of The Cardinal), in a 1945 issue of Hue & Cry, a magazine started by the late Hervey White: “Summer and winter the project of the bluestone Acropolis goes forward. Thus far, only a…Read More
Fite’s sculpture “Play,” carved from amaranth, is accepted into the 1947 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors and Drawings at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Exterior view of L’Obelisco, Rome, Via Sistina. From It’s a Roman Holiday for Artists: The American Artists of L’Obelisco After World War II by Ilaria Schiaffini Fite takes a two year sabbatical from Bard College to go to Rome and work in Italian marble. It is…Read More
Just months after his celebrated show in Rome, Fite has another solo exhibit at Galerie Raymond Creuze in Paris. Twenty-four sculptures are on exhibit. In his monograph for the show, Denys Chevalier writes about Fite’s process: “There is no subject too beautiful or too ugly for him. Not even the…Read More
In September of 1952, Harvey Fite attends, as an observer, the first International Conference of Artists sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization under the presidency of the Italian composer, Ildebrando Pizzetti. Over the course of seven days in Venice, Italy, some 300 artists and representatives from 44…Read More
Searching for material for a larger piece to replace his sculpture Flame at the center of his quarry work, Fite discovers a fourteen-foot long, nine ton block of hewn bluestone lying in a stream bed a few miles from his property. The owners on one side of the property give…Read More
Harvey Fite builds a new studio in the woods. The sunny space is 600 feet away from the house and allows Fite to convert his former studio into a living room for his family’s use. He uses the studio as a workspace as well as a place to keep new…Read More
Harvey Fite in Cambodia. Though his formal education has been challenged by dyslexia, Fite’s passion for learning has never lessened. Over the years he has fed his thirst for knowledge in far-ranging conversations with Woodstock friends, including writers Hervey White and Howard Koch, and artists Tomas…Read More
After two decades, the overall shape of Harvey Fite’s creation has come into being. Set against the backdrop of Overlook Mountain, it follows the curves of the former Van Bramer Quarry. Fite is pleased with the progress of the sculpture but continues to feel that his original central figure, Flame, has…Read More
Good things come to those who wait. That nine ton, fourteen foot stone in the stream bed that Fite has had his eye on for ten years is finally his. He straps it in the back of a flatbed truck and hauls it over to the quarry. But getting it…Read More
Fite’s intention is to carve the stone, but once his monolith is in place, it becomes clear to him that over the past quarter century his quarry has outgrown carved sculpture. Having already replaced Flame at the central pedestal, he removes Tomorrow and Quarry Family as well. He clears out…Read More
Fite begins work on what he envisions as a great amphitheater on the northwest side of the sculpture. As he has with the rest of the quarry, he clears away mountains of discarded rock and debris to expose the site. It will possess a stage and wings for the actors…Read More
On September 29th, 1968 to benefit the Hudson Valley Repertory Theater (Barbara Fite was on the board of the organization) Fite opens the proverbial doors to his creation to the public for what he declares will be the “first & last time.” He will, however, open it to the public…Read More
Photo courtesy of Bard Archives & Special Collections. After 36 years of association with the school, Fite retires from Bard College. An exhibit of his work is held in conjunction with his retirement at the Proctor Art Center in June. The Daily Freeman wrote of his…Read More
Fite builds a garage to house his trucks, including his trusty Jeep and an old fire engine that he bought from Bard College in the early 1950s. The fire engine’s primary use has been to serve as a pumping mechanism to clean out pools in and around the quarry, but…Read More
Harvey Fite dies at 72 in a fall into his quarry sculpture when his tractor mower malfunctions while he is cutting the grass by the pool near its southern edge. Barbara is away. His body is found by his close friend Bert Wrolsen, at whose house he was expected for…Read More
Tad Richards and Barbara Fite at the Hirschhorn exhibit. Opus 40 is featured at the Hirschhorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in a show called Probing the Earth: Contemporary Land Projects. This exhibition showcased 70 photographs, drawings, models, and related sculptures that document 12 Land art…Read More
Barbara Fite founds Opus 40, Incorporated as a 501 (c)3 nonprofit. She forms a volunteer board comprised of family and friends to help steer Opus 40 into a new era, establishes the Friends of Opus 40, a membership group to help meet the institution’s financial needs, and for the first…Read More
The first regular season of scheduled concerts at Opus 40. Over the years the programs will feature local, regional, and national talent, and become an important part of the cultural life of the area. After a long hiatus, the series resumes in 2019 with Friday night concerts.
Richie Havens, a rock great known for his riveting impromptu performance of “Freedom” at Woodstock in 1969, plays at Opus 40’s first large public event. During his set, a bolt of lightning crashes a mere 40 feet away from the stage. Havens will later recall the natural occurrence with excitement,…Read More
For nearly 20 years, Orleans performs every Labor Day at Opus 40. The American pop-rock band, best known for its hits “Still the One” and “Dance with Me,” draws over 1,200 attendees to each event.
Rollins playing on his back. Jazz legend Sonny Rollins and his ensemble perform at Opus 40. Rollins chooses the site because he feels Fite’s monument embodies Saxophone Colossus — his nickname and the title of his seminal 1956 album — and because it provides a unique…Read More
After a short and sudden illness, Barbara Fite dies at 72. Her artistic vision and close collaboration with Harvey Fite have helped shape Opus 40, and her establishment and stewardship of the non-profit ensure the preservation and future of her husband’s masterwork.
After the passing of Barbara Fite, her older son Tad Richards, a writer and educator, and his wife Pat, move into the Fite House and take on the responsibility for Opus 40, Inc. For the next three decades they will work to maintain the sculpture and its grounds, guiding the…Read More