The Arts and Crafts Movement came to Woodstock in 1902, with the arrival of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, Bolton Brown and Hervey White, who formed the Byrdcliffe Colony.

In 1906, L. Birge Harrison and others founded the Summer School of the Art Students League of New York in the area, primarily for landscape painting.

[10] Woodstock is also home to the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Buddhist monastery, situated at the top of Mead's Mountain Road.

The town is famous for lending its name to the Woodstock Festival, which was actually held at Max Yasgur's dairy farm almost 60 miles (97 km) away in Bethel in Sullivan County.

[14] Composers such as Henry Cowell, John Cage, Robert Starrer and Peter Schickele created works that were premiered there.

Today, this hand-built concert hall with perfect acoustics is a multi-starred attraction on the National Register of Historic Places with world-class musicians playing there from June to September.

[15] The town is home to the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum (WAAM), founded in 1919 by John F. Carlson, Frank Swift Chase, Andrew Dasburg, Carl Eric Lindin, and Henry Lee McFee.

[16] The WAAM Permanent Collection features work by important American artists associated with the region, including Milton Avery, George Bellows, Edward Leigh Chase, Frank Swift Chase, Florence Ballin Cramer, Arnold Blanch, Doris Lee, Marion Greenwood, Philip Guston, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Paul Meltsner, and many others.

It is a multicultural organization which sponsors exhibitions, classes, concerts, dance and theatre events and runs the oldest craft shop in Woodstock, the Fleur de Lis Gallery, which features over 60 artists.

In 1981, the town hosted the Woodstock Jazz Festival, a celebration of the Creative Music Studio, an organization founded in 1971 by Karl Berger and Ornette Coleman.

The show featured Jack Dejohnette, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Anthony Braxton, Lee Konitz, and Miroslav Vitouš, among others.

Ann Hood, Augusten Burroughs, Shalom Auslander, Kurt Andersen and Ned Leavitt spoke and offered workshops on a variety of topics related to literature.

The town has long been a mecca for artists, musicians, actors, and writers, even before the music festival made the name "Woodstock" famous.