LIFE & WORK

For almost half of her 95 years, Barbara Clark Denyer built, sculpted and painted over 45 works made from curious objects found, collected and meticulously hand-crafted. Her three-dimensional pieces are inextricable facets of her larger work, her home—an 1860’s Victorian coach house tucked alongside the Hudson River. Here, where she lived and raised her family, Denyer created a personal, highly curated, museum-like realm. Themes and materials intermingle in miniature environments, dioramas, altars, triptychs and sculptures.

With wit and complexity of thought, qualities Denyer possessed and shared freely, the work is her unique commentary on politics, religion, sexuality, morality, femininity, history and the quirks and contradictions of human existence. Each room embodies and amplifies the whole, carrying its own element of the larger vision. As artist and keeper of the experience, Denyer was also a central figure. She appears, as if part of a performance piece, wearing examples of the unique clothing she was known to don throughout her life. 

Home and art as one creation, Denyer never wished the two to be shown separately. Seen by only a handful of family and close friends, The Denyer House is open for a limited number of visitors by prearranged visit.