As Director of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz, Neil Trager led the efforts to build the new museum, to house CPW’s Permanent Print Collection there on long-term loan, and to develop the museum’s Howard Greenberg Family Gallery for photographic exhibitions. Neil has often recounted that he came to the Hudson Valley to work with CPW and the role his association with CPW has played in his successful careers as photographer and arts leader.

Neil had served as Director of the College Art Gallery at SUNY since 1982, before being named the Dorsky Museum’s founding director in 2001. The directorship of the Samuel Dorsky Museum was recently endowed in Neil’s name.

Prior to his career in museum work, Neil taught photography at New York colleges and the Center for Photography at Woodstock. His work has been widely exhibited, including one-person shows at the Neuberger Museum and at O.K. Harris Works of Art, and is included in private and public collections such as those of the Museum of Modern Art, The Neuberger Museum, The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, and the New York Public Library, which recently acquired 50 prints from his Mechanics series. Neil has curated and developed numerous photography exhibitions including David Hockney: Cameraworks, The Photo League 1936 - 1951, Beaumont Newhall: A Life in Photography, Hot Spots: America’s Volcanic Landscape (Len Jenshel and Diane Cook), Kenro Izu: Light Over Ancient Asia, The I Ching, Photographs by David Scheinbaum & Janet Russek, Urban Noir LA/NY: Photographs by Helen K. Garber, and Rituals de la Tierra y del Espiritu (Rituals of the Land and Spirit): Photographs by Miguel Gandert.

To learn more about the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz, click here.