Memorial Service: The Grunberg Family invites you to join them in memory and celebration of Judy's life with a program of music, dance, words, and images followed by a reception with light refreshments. The event will be held at the Open Air Theater of PS 21, the venue Judy imagined and built for our community. Sunday, Oct 13, 2019, at 12 noon 2980 Route 66, Chatham, NY. All are welcome. At the request of the family, donations to honor Judy's memory and carry on her legacy can be made to the Judith B. Grunberg Memorial Fund. Obituary: Grunberg, Judith Backer, 86. Died peacefully on August 30 at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany. She is predeceased by her parents Theodore Backer and Mireille (Heller) Backer, and her husband of 37 years, Paul Grunberg. Born and raised in Manhattan, New York, she attended the Dalton school and was an amateur flutist and choral singer, and loved the Broadway theatre. She studied art at Bennington College (class of '55), and after college, drawing and painting in Rome, Italy. She met and married the architect Paul Grunberg in 1960, and they moved to the town of Chatham, New York in 1965, where they raised their four sons. She created an extensive garden of vegetables and flowers for her family and became involved in the local art scene, becoming the first artistic director of the Columbia County Council on the Arts in 1965, in which role she continued for two decades. In 1996, Grunberg and her husband acquired the Blue Plate restaurant in Chatham, and she has owned and operated it since. Following her husband's death, she applied her considerable talents and boundless positive energy to further undertake a wide array of charitable and business projects around Chatham, all the while continuing to produce her own art - primarily fabrics, drawing, photography, and graphic design. Among her many contributions, she was a prolific designer of logos for local businesses and nonprofits, including The Chatham Bookstore, Handcrafters art supplies, Columbia County Council on the Arts, Options clothing store in Albany, Chatham Real Food Market, and Rewraps clothing store. In 1999, Grunberg founded PS21 (Performance Spaces for the 21st Century), a non-profit in Chatham that recently completed the realization of her three decade-long dream - the construction of a 300-seat open air pavilion and 99-seat black box theatre on the grounds of an apple orchard with sweeping views. She founded the Rewraps clothing store on Main Street to benefit PS21, and served as the President of PS21 until her death. Grunberg served on many local boards, including the Crandell Theatre in Chatham, Time & Space Ltd. in Hudson, The Columbia Land Conservancy, Close Encounters with Music in Great Barrington, Chatham Area Business & Arts, Chatham Real Food Market (co-founder), and WAMC Northeast Public Radio. She also founded the OPTIONS clothing store in Albany. Grunberg had a number of shows of her work, including Close but Not Art? (sculpture and found objects, receiving 3rd place in Metroland's Top Ten Shows of the Year 1998), and retrospective Judy Grunberg: Past and Present, at Time & Space Limited in Hudson; Across the Table (line drawings) at Ralph's Cafe, Necessary Lines gallery and other venues; and most recently, At the Feeder & On the Street (photography), at TSL in 2019. Grunberg is survived by her children John of Wanaque, NJ, Daniel and spouse Elaine of Lexington, MA, David of New York City, and Noah and spouse Janet of Shelburne Falls, MA; her lifelong dedicated assistant Alice Witherell of Ghent, NY, seven grandchildren, and scores of loving friends, relatives, and associates. A memorial service in celebration of Judy Grunberg's life will be held at a date to be announced. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to PS21, Inc (PO Box 321, Chatham, NY 12037), the nonprofit arts center Grunberg founded and to which she devoted her final decades of life. Please designate gifts to the Judith B. Grunberg Memorial Fund. Condolences may be conveyed at frenchblasl.com.