Future home of the Susquehanna River Art Collection in Columbia (AI enhanced)
SRAFriends
Friends of the Susquehanna River Art Collection to open gallery in Columbia
Susquehanna played major role in American art history
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Karen Hendricks/WITF
SRAFriends
Future home of the Susquehanna River Art Collection in Columbia (AI enhanced)
A first-of-its-kind art gallery plans to open its doors in Lancaster County in 2027 – a gallery exclusively showcasing one subject, Susquehanna River-depicted artwork.
The nonprofit Friends of the Susquehanna River Art Collection, formed in January 2026, purchasing the gallery space in September. The facility is at 22. S. 2nd Street in the riverside borough of Columbia.
It’s the latest iteration in a years-long process of river-related art acquisition begun by York County-based artist Rob Evans, whose collection merged with others to form the Susquehanna River Art Collection.
“We’re excited to connect into the energy that’s happening in Columbia,” says Evans. “It’s an up-and-coming river town. They have a new hotel going in, and the historic Wright’s Ferry Mansion is right next door, practically, to our gallery…. So I think it’ll be a great location for us.”
Rob Evans
River Roots
A life-long artist himself, Evans says the Susquehanna River heavily influenced his life in many ways.
Although he grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., both of his parents were raised along the Susquehanna — his father near Wilkes-Barre and his mother in a unique York County home known as Roundtop, strikingly poised atop a hill opposite from Lancaster County’s Chickies Rock. Evans’ grandparents bought it in the 1930s, and Evans spent childhood visits “wandering the hills overlooking the Susquehanna.”
“Little did I know as a kid that it was actually the river, and this particular part of the river … [that] inspired the American Sublime art movement, which I would discover and kind of uncover later on in my life,” Evans reflects.
There was something about the Susquehanna that drew him, and he made Pennsylvania his home as an adult.
“Like it did for a lot of people, the Susquehanna infected me and got into my psyche and bones and eventually drew me back here right after I graduated from college. Eventually, my wife and I met along the river, and we purchased the farm that adjoins Roundtop,” Evans says, speaking recently on WITF’s Susquehanna Scout podcast.
He says he knew from an early age that he wanted to become an artist. Now, he says he’s been “fortunate to have a 40-some-year career as an artist using the Susquehanna Valley as a potent source of subject matter for my work.”
Genesis of a Gallery
About 20 years ago, the newly-created Susquehanna National Heritage Area, along with the York History Center and Lancaster History, approached Evans about curating a collection of Susquehanna River-themed art for them.
“At this point, I have no idea that there’s any legacy around the Susquehanna River at all,” Evans explains. “I was fully expecting the exhibit to be mostly local art and that type of thing. And then, as I dug deeper, I found that many of the great famous paintings from the 19th century, in exhibition halls like the Met or the National Gallery, labeled Hudson River School – many of these paintings are actually images of the Susquehanna River.”
The Hudson River School, a mid-19th-century American art movement influenced by Romanticism, captured pastoral scenes of American landscapes at the time. Evans says some of the movement’s “A-list artists” actually depicted the Susquehanna, including Frederick Church, Jasper Crospey and Thomas Moran.
Evans became a self-proclaimed “novice curator” and managed to pull together the exhibit “Visions of the Susquehanna” comprised of $5 million worth of paintings from museums across the country. The exhibit traveled to museums throughout Mid-Atlantic.
The process was eye-opening for Evans, and left him wanting to learn more. He began scouring eBay and other sources, acquiring as many Susquehanna-focused works as he could, including prints and ceramics.
“I began to find that the Susquehanna dominated a lot of these things during the 19th century,” Evans explains.
Susquehanna River Art Collection
Matthaus Merian the Elder (1593-1650), John Smith Map of Virginia, 1627
It was a process Evans compares to “treasure hunting.” One of the pieces he holds in high esteem is a 1627 map by John Smith that shows the first contact with the Susquehannocks. It’s a hand-colored copper engraving by Matthaus Merian the Elder.
Two other people would play key roles in Evans’ quest for Susquehanna art.
First, he was contacted by art historian Roger Stein, who had pulled together a similar exhibit in 1975. Stein “passed the torch,” says Evans, and shared all his research on Susquehanna art.
Secondly, Evans’ friend Jim Snyder joined forces with him and helped build the collection by attending art auctions.
After about a decade, the two realized their collections needed a bigger, collective home where the full story of Susquehanna River art could be told.
Forming the Friends
With a foundational collection of 170 pieces of art, Evans and Snyder, along with dozens of supporters, formed the nonprofit Friends of the Susquehanna River Art Collection.
Over the summer, the collection was exhibited at Harrisburg’s Susquehanna Art Museum. Evans says museum staff told him it set attendance records, even attracting visitors from the entire Mid-Atlantic Region, and proving the draw of Susquehanna River-themed art.
Susquehanna River Art Collection
John James Audubon (1809-1854) Canvas Backed Ducks
While part of the collection is currently being housed at the Historic Hellam Preserve, owned by Lancaster Conservancy, the Friends are renovating their future Columbia gallery space.
“We’re leaning toward the possibility of keeping the historic collection here at the Preserve because it ties into the nature of the property which dates back to the 1740s,” Evans says. “And then, because of Columbia being right on the railroad and being more of an industrial town at that time in the 19th century, we think some of the later 19th-century, early 20th-century and contemporary art would be the best things to show over in that space.”
The Friends have appointed Rob Evans’ daughter and fellow artist Quinn Evans as the organization’s first executive director, following her leadership of Meeting House Arts in Freeport, ME.
For Rob Evans, the upcoming gallery opening and his daughter’s appointment is the culmination of a long Susquehanna-inspired journey with an outcome he never could have predicted.
“I really can’t put it into words,” Evans says. “I never dreamed, when I first started collecting these prints, or even before that, when we were putting together that first exhibit, that it would lead to something so permanent and significant, and filling a gap—an actual gap in our history…. The energy just keeps growing and growing, and it’s infectious. And I think part of that is people’s passion for this river.”
To learn more, listen to Susquehanna Scout on your favorite podcast platform, also available on our website, here.
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