Joseph Squillante

I am honored to receive the 2026 Arts Award in the “Artist” category from ArtsWestchester. This recognition is an opportunity to highlight Peekskill and our vibrant arts community. Since 1976, ArtsWestchester has honored individuals and organizations whose vision and leadership have made a lasting impact on Westchester’s arts and cultural life. Joseph Squillante has been photographing the Hudson River for 50 years. He has traveled the length of the river, from its source at Lake Tear of the Clouds on Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks to its mouth at New York Harbor. This year the Hudson River Museum is proud to present "Lens on the Hudson" a solo exhibition celebrating Joseph's 50th anniversary of capturing the Hudson River’s magnificence, producing thousands of evocative photographs that offer a lens into the past and present of this historic waterway. The exhibition will be on view from May 9 to October 19, 2025. In 2022-23 Joseph's work is represented in two museums, the New York State Museum and the Hudson River Museum. In 2019 his photographs were exhibited in "Hudson Rising" at the New-York Historical Society. Forty-six of Joseph's Hudson River photographs from Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondacks to night view from the World Trade Center are on permanent exhibit throughout The Abbey Inn in Peekskill. Please visit. “My love for the Hudson continues to grow each time I visit its shores,” says Joseph. “Making photographs of this wonderful subject has become my life’s work.” A New York Times reviewer noted that some of Joseph’s pictures are similar in style to Hudson River School, Barbizon, and 19th-century Realist painters. Like the Hudson landscape painters before him, Joseph is attracted to the beauty and romance of the river. Well-respected by the Hudson River community, Joseph’s talent and his concern for the Hudson enable him to distill the spirit of this national treasure. He works with organizations such as Riverkeeper, Clearwater and Scenic Hudson who has recognized him as a “Hudson Valley Hero.” Joseph has been asked to exhibit at important river milestones, such as the American Heritage River celebration and the opening of the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries on the Hudson. In 2013, Joseph was invited back to the Beacon Institute for a solo exhibit opening in October; and has been asked to exhibit in Scenic Hudson’s year-long show “On Time and Place” to commemorate their first 50 years. Joseph’s mission is to foster an awareness of the river’s visual magnificence through photography. To this end, he and his wife, Carol Capobianco, founded the Hudson River School of Photography, cultivating an appreciation for the Hudson through workshops, slide presentations, in-classroom talks, lessons, exhibitions, and note cards and prints. In 2009 the Quadricentennial of Henry Hudson’s journey to America, Joseph had several exhibits on the Hudson including alan Klotz Gallery in Manhattan to the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers and six-month solo exhibit at the Albany Institute of History and Art. “As I reach out and share my work, I meet many people who also love the river,” says Joseph. “My aim is to nurture and expand this community. I believe that a greater appreciation of this natural resource will lead to a better understanding of its importance. The Hudson is a universal subject and a continual source of inspiration.” Joseph’s work also includes portraiture and still life and is sold internationally through the photography agency Getty Images, in New York, and through his own studio, Silver Ink®, in Peekskill, NY. Joseph is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers, ArtsWestchester Teaching Artist Roster and the Peekskill Arts Alliance. Joseph is a board member of the Peekskill Herald and a former Vice-Chair of the Historic and Landmarks Preservation Board for the City of Peekskill. Joseph’s abstract work was selected for exhibit at the Katonah Museum of Art in 2015, and won “Best of ASMP 2017” Honorable Mention in a national contest at the American Society of Media Photographers. In 2020 forty-six of Joseph"s Hudson River photographs were selected for The Abbey Inn, and curated by Martin Ginsburg. A number of his photographs are in the permanent collections of the New-York Historical, Museum of the City of New York, New York State Museum, Albany Institute of History and Art and Hudson River Museum.