Opus 40 Sculpture Park and Museum

ABOUT

Located in Saugerties, NY, Harvey Fite’s Opus 40 is an extraordinary 6.5 acre earthwork, created out of an abandoned bluestone quarry at the foot of Overlook Mountain. Fite worked in concert with his environment to create a sculptural landscape that inspires and confounds – how could one man create all this by himself with only hand tools?

Opus 40 invites visitors to walk around and upon the sculpture as well as our historic quarry trails that make up some of our 63 acre property and to explore the Quarryman’s Museum, filled with tools that Fite collected through the years. Throughout the season we offer guided tours, as well as a series of nature and wellness classes, concerts, and curated shows in our gallery.

SPECIAL RESOURCES

“I am trying to do ten thousand years of Egyptian culture in one life time, and in that time I am trying to be Pharaoh and ten thousand slaves. The quarry is slowly, very slowly, being turned into an edifice of stone. Not for dwelling, but for meditation. With the sky as its roof it will take the elements ten thousand years to destroy it. Man can do it much more quickly of course, but until then, I will be safely entombed in the rock. A life size figure is already mounted high on a circular terrace. Another is in the making. But the design of the whole moves slowly. I am only one-man power with makeshift equipment – simple primitive aids, lever, fulcrum, and roller.”

— Harvey Fite

Harvey Fite (1903 – 1976)

Born 25 December, 1903 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania but raised in Texas, Harvey Fite tried his hand at a number of different careers before he discovered his passion for sculpture. At 23 he received a scholarship to study for the ministry on the east coast but soon abandoned the church for a life on the stage, touring with the Jitney Players. During that time, he discovered carving and realized that was his true calling. In 1938 he bought an abandoned quarry for the materials. He got a job teaching theater and sculpture at his alma mater, now called Bard College, built a two-story studio home on his property, and spent any free time sculpting. To display his sculpture, he planned to convert the rubble in the quarry into a series of ramps and pedestals to create an outdoor gallery. Soon, however, he realized it had become a work of art in itself. He spent the rest of his life working tirelessly, alone and by hand, to create Opus 40.

_{Harvey Fite’s carved ¾ ton bluestone sculpture, “Tomorrow,” c. 1940s, on the grounds of Opus 40. 33” H x 34” W x 8” D. Photograph by Lisa Ven Vertloh, courtesy of Opus 40.}

_{Harvey Fite stands among his carved sculptures in his original home studio, c. 1946. Photograph by Wendell Jones, courtesy of Opus 40.}

_{Harvey Fite’s earthwork, “Opus 40,” created from an abandoned bluestone quarry in Saugerties, NY. It spans over 6 acres and was built entirely by hand from 1939-1976. Photograph by Lisa Ven Vertloh, courtesy of Opus 40.}

LEARN MORE

Legend has it that as an actor waiting backstage during a performance with the Jitney Players, Harvey Fite picked up a wooden spool the wardrobe mistress had cast aside and began to whittle. What became of that spool we’ll never know, but that moment of creation was the spark that would ignite the rest of his career.

In 1938, Fite, now a theater professor and founder of the Art Department at Bard College, was ready to put down roots. When he discovered the quarry in High Woods it had been abandoned for years, but he saw promise in the rubble, a vast supply of raw material for his sculpture, and land to build a live-in studio.

The following year, after returning from an inspiring archeological assignment in Copan, Honduras, Fite began construction on his home studio using timber salvaged from a friend’s 150-year-old barn in Princeton, NJ. After dismantling the structure, Fite trucked the wood to his property, and with the help of a few friends and neighbors built his two-story studio/living space, using this reclaimed wood on the inside, to show off the inherent beauty of its weathered facade. The structure consisted of a large open studio with modest living quarters and a sizable fireplace downstairs, and a sitting room with a large picture window and interior and exterior balconies above, to provide perspectives on the progress of his work, both in the studio and the quarry.

In 1944, Fite married Barbara Fairbanks Richards, daughter of the Director of the American Academy in Rome. Barbara brought not only her keen eye and artistic sophistication, but two sons from her first marriage, providing Harvey with an instant family. Over the next ten years, Fite added a bedroom (also used as a gallery), guest room, and finally an addition he called the “small fry wing” for Barbara’s boys. Fite jokingly referred to his home as an “upside-down, inside-outhouse,” with its sleeping accommodations downstairs and living areas upstairs to take advantage of the view of his creation.

Eventually the quarry, initially intended to showcase his carved sculpture, took on a life of its own. It evolved into an extraordinary example of a land art earthwork, though it was begun before that term was coined. Covering more than six acres and built entirely by hand, Harvey Fite’s Opus 40 is both an astonishing work of art and a monument to what man’s vision, perseverance and passion can accomplish.