The Davison Art Center at Wesleyan University has purchased Leonard Freed’s Powder Ridge photographs from the Brill Gallery, North Adams, by Michael Miller
The Davison Art Center at Wesleyan University has purchased a collection of Leonard Freed's photographs of the abortive second coming of the Woodstock Festival in the summer of 1970, planned to take place at the Powder Ridge Ski Resort near Middlefield, Connecticut, on July 30 and 31. Some of the most renowned rock stars of the time were scheduled to perform, including Joe Crocker, Allman Brothers, Janis Joplin, James Taylor, Van Morrison, Little Richard and Richie Havens. Local citizens, apprehensive about the large gathering of young people (30,000 tickets had been pre-sold), obtained a court order and forced the cancellation of the festival. The audience turned up anyway and entertained themselves. The number of participants is numbered between 25,000 and 35,000. There were conversations, swimming, sex, and on the second evening music from local bands. Drugs of all kinds were liberally enjoyed, with the attendant excesses, but no deaths. Contemporary news coverage tended to focus on the bad trips and other sensationalistic aspects of the event—none of which were to be seen in Leonard Freed's sunnier view of the proceedings, as selected by Susannah Freed and shown at The Brill Gallery.(For a complete view of the show, click here.)
