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Brushed Aside?

A case in the Delaware Supreme Court is about more than Henlopen Acres’ opposition to a change at the Rehoboth Art League’s historic campus. It makes us ponder an age-old question: What is the role of art?

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Karen McGrath sits on a bench outside the main office and gallery of the Rehoboth Art League, basking in the sun.

Eighteen months ago McGrath became executive director of the art league—only the third person to hold the title in the organization’s 70-year history—which has renewed in her a passion not only for art, but also for the importance of preservation.

“I used to work in Philadelphia, in Center City at Fourth and Chestnut,” she says. “On my way to work, I would cut through Washington Square Park. It always amazed me to see people from all over the world who were there to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall and the entire history of the city. And that’s what this place is to me. It’s a special place, and it needs to be preserved.”

McGrath breathes deeply in the quiet space of Henlopen Acres, the small municipal enclave (population: 139) next to Rehoboth Beach, where the storied art league established its home long ago. Compared to the Rehoboth of summer, Henlopen Acres and the art league, on what is properly called The Homestead, feel like a different, more peaceful part of the world. 

The grounds are a sleepy three-and-a-half acres on the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal that is dotted with several late 18th-century cottages, English-style gardens, Colonial horse stables and a towering magnolia tree that some believe is the largest in the state. It’s rather empty on this particular afternoon, but it’s not too difficult to imagine scores of painters and craftspeople coming here to set up easel and canvas. It’s a veritable Eden of inspiration.

But lest one confuse the tranquility of this place with stodgy antiquity, or a shelter for dilettantes and amateur dalliances, McGrath is quick to point out that the Rehoboth Art League is very much alive, vibrant—even a little cutting edge. In addition to offering rotating gallery shows of local and national artists, art classes in disciplines ranging from illustration to creative writing, and weekend-long festivals, the art league hosts nationally recognized painters and sculptors for instructional seminars, as well as the occasional lecture series and film screening.

“I think a lot of people have this perception of the art league as just—and I don’t mean this in a negative way—but that it’s just a gathering of old ladies painting lighthouses. But that’s not it,” she says. “We have some really cutting-edge, interesting work going on down here in a variety of media.” McGrath cracks a smile. “We’re not the stodgy old art league some people think we are.”

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