The work of a local LGBTQ advocate and champion of the arts lives on in memory.

Word of Marcuse Pfeifer's death last month plunged the Hudson Valley art and activism communities into mourning.

'Cusie,' as she was called by those who knew her best, was a founding member of the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center, as well as a supporter of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz.

Former museum director Sara Pasti spoke about Pfeifer’s legacy.

"I think she would want people to appreciate photography. She sort of persuaded the art world to accept it as an art form. She supported the advancement of women and the LGBTQ community, so she was an activist. The photographs and the photographers she collected represented bringing to awareness what’s going on in the world," Pasti, who serves as SUNY New Paltz’s director of External Relations and Advancement, said.

In the 1970s, Pfeifer owned one of the first galleries in New York City to exclusively show photos.

In 2018, she made a massive donation of 19th and 20th century photographs from that gallery to the SUNY Museum.