SHELBURNE FALLS — Organizers of the annual Colrain on Canvas art exhibit are broadening their scope of accepted submissions in the event’s fourth year.

While the exhibit, organized by the Colrain Historical Society, has traditionally focused on art depicting Colrain, it will also highlight Hawley, Heath, Rowe, Charlemont, Buckland, Ashfield, Conway, Plainfield, Shelburne and Halifax, Vermont this year.

“After three years of Colrain-focused art, this year we have enriched the experience by including paintings and artists from our neighboring hilltowns,” Deborah Wheeler, a member of the Colrain Historical Society’s board of directors, wrote in a statement.

Colrain on Canvas will be held Saturday, Sept. 23, and Sunday, Sept. 24, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Shelburne-Buckland Community Center, 53 Main St. Admission costs $10.

The exhibit will feature 75 paintings, including work by famed regional artists Robert Strong Woodward, Steve Maniatty, George Gardner Symons, Edwin Lorenzo Elmer and William Lester Stevens. All the paintings featured in Colrain on Canvas are on loan from private collections, and have not been shown in previous displays.

Judith Russell, a late Shelburne Falls folk artist, will have a special feature.

“She had an ability to show the New England countryside at its best: people living in harmony with their environment, in which respect for tradition co-exists with openness to the new,” Wheeler wrote.

Several pieces of Russell’s original work will be for sale. Attendees also have a chance to win a print by Hale Johnson, an established oil landscapist who died in 2022, and a watercolor of the Lamson & Goodnow Manufacturing Co. by the late Elice Pieropan as part of a silent auction.

The show will also highlight the reprinting of a booklet made by Katherine Cram in 1941. In the booklet, she visits the various villages of Colrain and identifies their key businesses and industries. This reprinting features more than 70 archival photos added by the Colrain Historical Society to help illustrate her writings.

Prints featured in this year’s exhibit and past exhibits, as well as reprints of photographs and maps from the Historical Society’s collection, will be available for sale.

Wheeler explained the images featured in Colrain on Canvas, dating back to the 1930s, help illustrate how the area has changed while also bringing back memories for longtime residents.

“Walking through the art show is like walking down memory lane,” Wheeler said in a phone interview. “It gets very emotional, bringing them back to their childhood.”

Bella Levavi can be reached at 413-930-4579 or blevavi@recorder.com.