• Courtesy Of Donnel Barnum
• "Sugaring" by Ruth Greene Mould

When Lyman Orton named his art exhibition "For the Love of Vermont," it wasn't a shallow sentiment. He declares his devotion freely and frequently, even in a phone interview. Perhaps that's no surprise for a seventh-generation Vermonter and second-generation proprietor of the renowned Vermont Country Store.

But it might have been a revelation to some fellow Vermonters when, in July, the Bennington Museum and the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester opened concurrent exhibitions featuring the Lyman Orton Collection. Comprising more than 200 works on paper and canvas, along with related artifacts, the exhibits establish Orton, 82, as more than a successful retailer: He's an impresario of art.

Orton has vastly expanded — now with his three adult sons — the mail-order business that his parents, Vrest and Mildred, founded in Weston in 1946. Turns out, he's also been avidly amassing artwork. And it's not a random collection.

Orton's laser focus has been to acquire pieces — initially at auctions and estate sales with a friend, art appraiser Barbara Melhado — that feature scenes in his beloved Vermont. Online, Orton and collection curator Donnel Barnum have located works that "escaped" to private or institutional holdings out of state and "repatriated" them so Vermonters can enjoy them.

"We've developed a cadre of sleuths to identify places in the paintings," Orton said.

While many works of art past and present imply the importance of place conceptually, Orton's acquisitions are literally and entirely about place — and, it must be said, a place in time. A sense of nostalgia permeates the collection. The paintings suggest a simpler, unblemished Vermont of yesteryear, a veritable Elysium, save for the hard manual labor of living off the land.

• Courtesy Of Donnel Barnum
• "North Rupert Valley" by Wallace Weir Fahnestock

Mostly paintings, with a smattering of etchings and mixed-media pieces, the landscapes, farmscapes and small-town scenes were created predominantly in the 1920s through 1960s. That was "the golden age of Vermont art," Orton said. "So many artists were coming here — or were born here — in that era. Some came in summer, some in winter, to paint snow scenes." (Artists still do, of course, but Orton has intentionally centered his collection on those earlier years.)

Some of the artists were employed by the Works Progress Administration during the New Deal; others fled urban areas to vacation in the bucolic countryside. Many of the artists chose to stay, working myriad jobs to make ends meet. A loose association of primarily plein air painters became known as the Southern Vermont Artists — the genesis, Orton said, of the Manchester arts center.

In a book about the exhibition, also titled For the Love of Vermont, coauthor Anita Rafael observes: "Whether the artists lived in the state, were just passing through, or became part-time residents, they are among the countless men and women who painted and drew Vermont because they fell in love with it." Some became, as she put it, "incredibly famous."

Rafael, a Wardsboro-based writer, emphasized that the book is not a conventional exhibition catalog but rather a collection of stories — about Orton and family, about artists' "discovery" of Vermont in the early 20th century, and about some of the individual artists and paintings.

Manchester-based Orton acknowledged that he's attracted to images that speak to his own surroundings and, in some cases, family history. There are multiple paintings, for example, of the Vermont Country Store, including a small watercolor by Harlem Renaissance painter Palmer Hayden. Harry Shokler's "Orton House, Weston" depicts the brick house in which Orton grew up; with its blue sky, bare trees and snowy ground, the painting nearly exudes crisp winter air.

• Courtesy Of Donnel Barnum
• "Country Auction" by Kyra Markham

Auction scenes comprise a "collection-within-the-collection," Rafael writes in the book. They also inspire Orton's reminiscences. Bernadine Custer's small watercolor and ink sketch, titled simply "Auction," is accompanied by this memory of legendary New Hampshire auctioneer Richard Withington at an estate sale:

"Inevitably, at some point during the day someone would sneeze very loudly, and Richard never failed to shout out, 'Take care of yourself or we'll be setting up the tent in your backyard next!'"

A stark, iconic painting by Rockwell Kent titled "Puritan Church" (aka "Mother and Chicks") also has a connection to Orton's family. The simple steepled church looms atop a knoll surrounded by gravestones (the "chicks"); the gently humped mountains in the background and the sky are celestial blue. "[M]y ancestors on the maternal side of my mother's family, the Hamiltons, had worshipped at the Union Church," Orton notes in the book. "In fact, my great-grandfather helped to build it."

For the Love of Vermont is steeped in family, state and art history. Orton's story about finding and obtaining this Kent painting — put up for sale by a San Francisco art dealer in 2008 — is one of the personalized tales that both readers and viewers have found enthralling. (The book went into a second printing this summer.) The stories seem to turn the pictures into living things.

Orton's exhibition strategy is democratic — organizing works not by the artists' fame, skill or medium but in categories such as "Making a Living" and "Picture Country." And he is adamant that the gallery-going experience be accessible and welcoming to individuals who don't think of themselves as art viewers.

"I'm in the business of attracting customers from all walks of life," Orton said. "A lot of people who are not artists or curators would enjoy the show if we tell them about it in everyday language, put chairs and notebooks around, and make it comfortable."

Rafael, who wrote the text panels for the exhibition, said her goal was to "tell untold stories about the work" to visitors. "It changed the whole tone and tenor of the exhibition," she said.

Orton isn't certain what will happen next with his still-growing collection, but he's optimistic about its legacy.

"Now that [the works have] been organized, with signs, I'm looking to have them remain in Vermont long after I'm dead," he said. "I've been working on where they should live going forward. So, they're not going to disappear and maybe will be even more important in 100 years."

"I think the message is pride of place," Rafael concluded. "Vermonters defend it, are proud of it. Visitors might walk away feeling glad they live here."