Scenes of Rensselaerville come to life with veterinarian’s brush
RENSSELAERVILLE — Working as a veterinarian for 37 years, Bob Lynk knew the barns, flora, fauna, and scenic vistas of the Catskills and Helderbergs. Now he paints them in watercolor.
He grew up near Sharon Springs, on a dairy farm that has been in the family since 1859. He graduated from Cornell twice — with a bachelor’s degree from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and then as a doctor of veterinary medicine from the College of Veterinary Medicine.
His wife, Nancy Lynk, was born in Preston Hollow in the town of Renssealerville. They live in Delmar and spend summers in a cottage overlooking Crystal Lake in Rensselaerville. In 1998, when Dr. Lynk retired, their sunroom became his summer studio.
On Friday, June 3, Lynk will be hanging a score of paintings in the Palmer House Cafe at 1482 Main Street in Rensselaerville. An opening reception will be held on Sunday, June 5, from 2 to 4 p.m. The show will continue through July 7. Many of these paintings and others can be seen online at www.robertlynk.com. Several of them have been shown at the Altamont Fair.
The paintings feature the Rensselaerville Falls, its library, Presbyterian Church, Main Street, and the Mill House. But this exhibit is not limited to scenes of the hamlet. “Bolotsky’s Tree” and a small panorama of the Catskills are from nearby Mount Pisgah.
“The Lewisdale Farm,” near Medusa, is a place where Lynk enjoyed making farm calls. Also on display are paintings of “Lewisdale Holsteins,” “Della Rocco Sheep,” and “Reidsville Angus.”
“Laura and Jerry’s Charolais” is a Giclee reproduction of his painting for a cover of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
“The Sycamore on the Flat” was a sapling in the 1800s. The painting shows how the tree looked when the flat was both a pasture and the home of the Preston Hollow baseball team. In 1929, Preston Hollow was one of eight teams playing in the Suburban Baseball League sponsored by the Albany Knickerbocker Press and Albany Evening News. The other teams were Altamont, Castleton, Colonie, Ravena-Coeymans, McKnownville, Slingerlands, and South Bethlehem.
Today the sycamore stands like a sentinel guarding the baseball diamond in the Bayard Elsbree Memorial Park, home of the Preston Hollow Little League.