ROSLYN HARBOR, NY.- In celebration of its 25th anniversary, Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor, New York presents Out of the Vault: 25 Years of Collecting, its first comprehensive exhibition of works from the permanent collection. This presentation, on view through July 12, 2015, highlights patrons’ numerous gifts to the museum over the last quarter century, many of which have never, or rarely, been exhibited. Each gallery space within this multifaceted presentation will focus on different themes such as past and present portraiture, paintings and objects by Louis Comfort Tiffany, post-war prints and vintage posters of many eras. The exhibit explores a diverse range of artists who are strongly represented in the Museum’s collections, among them naturalist John James Audubon, photographer Larry Fink and Pop art icons Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, and Robert Indiana, among others.

The dramatic changes from gallery to gallery point to the scope and diversity of the museum’s collection. Tiffany’s paintings commemorating his travels through North Africa and his American sea- and landscapes are lavishly hung three high in one gallery, reflecting a large group of Tiffanys that came into the museum’s collection in 2012. The next gallery brings the viewer into the excitement and freshness of Pop art by masters such as Rauschenberg, Indiana, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Katz and Rivers. A far gallery features black-and-white scenes of New York in the 70s and 80s—churches, hotels, and clubs, especially the fabled Studio 54. This Social Graces portfolio by photographer Larry Fink also includes some scenes of Washington, D.C. and Allentown, PA. At the opposite end of the floor, the walls are devoted to French masters—works by Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Georges Braque and lithos by Honoré Daumier.

The second floor galleries expand our view of the collection. One full gallery features John James Audubon’s Imperial Quadupeds of America series, a 2014 gift to the museum by Elaine and Ronald Juster. The museum’s Abstract Expressionist holdings are next door, with works by Helen Frankenthaler and Jon Schueler, among others. Entering another gallery, the visitor is struck by Tree of Life, a flame-red work by photographer Peter Lik. Other landscapes in this section are by Hudson Valley artist Robert Hite, Childe Hassam and Berenice Abbott. The hallways uniting the second floor galleries are ablaze with early 20th-century theatrical and patriotism-themed posters donated by Mrs. Blanche Cirker.