YONKERS, NY.- The Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, will mark the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage to the New World with the exhibition Dutch New York: The Roots of Hudson Valley Culture, June 9, 2009 through January 10, 2010. The exhibition and its accompanying publication will explore the Dutch legacy of a liberal, capitalist, and multicultural environment that permeated the colony of New Netherland and still characterizes New York today.

Bringing the story of Dutch influence that began when Hudson, aboard his ship the Half Moon, navigated the river that now bears his name, the Museum joins other Westchester cultural organizations to celebrate the 2009 Hudson-Fulton-Champlain-Quadricentennial celebration.

The story of the Dutch in New York often experienced today in legend, celebration, and nomenclature will be seen in paintings and decorative arts, maps and ephemera drawn from the Museum’s collections and from other museums, including the Museum of the City of New York; the National Gallery of Art; the New York Historical Society; the Smithsonian Museum of American Art; and, Yale University Art Gallery.

The Hudson River Museum will illustrate the state and county’s Dutch heritage at five key times: the Half Moon enters New York Harbor in 1609; the period when Dutch culture throve under English rule, beginning 1709; the publication, beginning 1809, of Washington Irving’s stories that romanticized New York’s Dutch heritage and still inspire readers; the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration that sought to create a common Dutch past for the nation; and, in 2009, a significant Hudsonian anniversary at a time when the concept of historical “celebration” is increasingly debated.

Dutch New York is curated by Roger Panetta, Hudson River Museum Adjunct Curator of History and Visiting Professor of History at Fordham University; the Museum’s Curator of Exhibitions Bartholomew F. Bland, and Curator of Collections Laura L. Vookles.