The Manchester Historical Society, in collaboration with the Southern Vermont Arts Center, will present an exhibit on Italian-American artist Luigi Lucioni and his years living and working in Manchester. "Lucioni in Manchester: An Artist's Life" opens July 28 and runs through Sept. 9 in Gallery I at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester.

From 1939, when he bought a farmhouse and barn in east Manchester, until just before his death in 1988, the New York City-based artist spent every summer painting landscapes of trees, barns and buildings in Manchester and the surrounding towns. Lucioni had discovered Vermont in 1933 and was inspired by its similarity to northern Italy, where he was born in 1900. "I was reborn in this majestic setting and I fell in love with Vermont," he said later.