Artist Dorothy Ricci points to a winter scene, one of many paintings on display at her Harveys Lake home.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Harveys Lake artist shows love for history
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A steamboat gets ready to give passengers a ride across Harveys Lake in this painting by Dorothy Ricci.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
This view of old-time Harveys Lake shows an area where Grotto Pizza now stands, artist Dorothy Ricci explained.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Dorothy Ricci’s painting of the 1959 Knox Mine Disaster shows a trolley car being pushed into the Susquehanna River.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Artist Dorothy Ricci has painted a series of coal breakers that once dotted the region.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
The Hotel Oneonta was built in 1898 and destroyed by fire some 20 years later.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Artist Dorothy Ricci painted this picture of the Worthington Homestead, which is where she lives today, and local author F. Charles Petrillo published it in his history of Harveys Lake.
The artist’s most recent work is a still life of dragonfruit.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Artist Dorothy Ricci’s uncle, Olindo Mario Ricci, painted this portrait of a fallen angel.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
She lives in a house that was built in 1806.
She’s painted landscapes that depict Harveys Lake with cows grazing on surrounding hills, or passengers embarking on a steamship ride.
And she’s painstakingly created images of several breakers that dotted the region when coal was king.
So it’s safe to say Dorothy Ricci finds history fascinating.
“It took years of research,” the local artist said, pointing to her painting that shows the effort to alleviate the Knox Mine Disaster of January 1959 by pushing trolley cars and coal carriers called gondolas into the Susquehanna.
“I went there, visiting again and again, to study what color the river would have been at that time of year,” she said, nodding toward the swirling gray water.
If you were to visit Ricci’s home at Harveys Lake, she’d gladly show you how she’s turned it into an art gallery. Here are, for example, portraits of her father, Joseph Ricci, and a cousin who is a doctor.
“I went to the Art Students League of New York,” she said, noting her teacher Frank Mason taught her to paint portraits in “the style of Rembrandt” and she also studied art in her parents’ native Italy.
Some of her other paintings showcase such local landmarks as Gay’s Hardware Store in Tunkhannock and the old Goodleigh Farm in Dallas.
And author F. Charles Petrillo chose some of her paintings to illustrate his history of Harveys Lake, among them a picture of the Natoma, “the only fully doubled decked steamboat to run on Harveys Lake,” which was “launched with champagne” on June 9, 1900 and big enough to carry 350 passengers.
In the history book you’ll also find her paintings of Hanson’s Restaurant and the roller coaster from the adjacent amusement park, as well as her rendering of the Hotel Oneonta, which opened at Harveys Lake in 1898 and hosted President Teddy Roosevelt before a fire destroyed it in 1919.
Her contributions to the book include a painting of the Worthington Homestead, which once served as the local post office. The structure was built in 1806, and she bought it in 1985, when its condition was so deteriorated there was talk of a local fire department burning it in a practice fire.
Instead, the artist gutted it. “Yes, with a sledgehammer.”
A friend helped fix the roof, and after “shoveling coal for years,” she said, “I finally got central heating with radiators and pipes.”
Ricci, who grew up in the Bronx, moved to northeastern Pennsylvania decades ago with her family when her father accepted a management position at clothing manufacturer Leslie Faye.
She’s not the only artist in her family. Her uncle Olindo Mario Ricci worked for the WPA during the 1930s, painting scenes that depicted the ancient libraries of Rome and Alexandria for the reading room in the library of Brooklyn College.
In a hallway at her home, Dorothy Ricci displays another piece by her uncle — a large portrait of the fallen angel Lucifer. “I think I’ll eventually donate it to Brooklyn College,” she said. “Since they have his other work.”
If you’re interested in seeing Dorothy Ricci’s work for yourself, you won’t find a Facebook page. In traditional style, the history buff/painter can be reached at 570-639-1205.