KEEPING IT REAL
RECENT ACQUISITIONS OF NARRATIVE AND REALIST ART
TELLING THE STORY OF
PHILADELPHIA’S ART AND ARTISTS
Funding thank you text 90 words max.
Keeping It Real Recent Acquisitions of Narrative and Realist Art
CONTENTS Foreword 2 Conversation with Frank Galuszka 4 Dorothy J. del Bueno Gallery 18 Catherine M. Kuch Gallery 106 Works in the Exhibition 160
February 14 – June 7, 2015
TELLING THE STORY OF
PHILADELPHIA’S ART AND ARTISTS
FOREWORD WILLIAM R. VALERIO, PHD
As always, Woodmere’s staff has outshined
The Patricia Van Burgh Allison
themselves in the conception and
Director and CEO
implementation of this exhibition, and it is an honor to be part of such a talented,
Museums describe how their exhibition
dedicated team of professionals. Special
programs are designed to interpret and
thanks are extended to an anonymous donor
explore the relevance of the works of art
and to Dr. Dorothy J. del Bueno for their
in their collections. In turn, the collections
support of the exhibition.
grow in tandem with the exhibition programs because both strengths and gaps attract gifts
Woodmere is grateful to the many generous
and make apparent the need to “complete”
individuals who gave works of art to the
the story of an artist’s trajectory or of a
Museum. Some gifts will be shown in future
cultural moment that may be only partially
exhibitions, and we thank those donors for
represented.
their patience and understanding that the walls of our galleries are never big enough
This has been the case at Woodmere.
for all of the great treasures we would like to
In the spring of 2012, we offered an
show.
exhibition, Haunting Narratives: Detours from Philadelphia Realism, 1935 to the Present, exploring Philadelphia’s history
William R. Valerio
of realist and narrative art. The exhibition announced Woodmere’s interest in the
The Patricia Van Burgh Allison Director and
history of modernist realism in Philadelphia,
CEO
and because of it we built fruitful new relationships with many artists, families, and collectors who share the same passion. From these relationships there has come a great outpouring of generosity, and our collection has become richer and deeper. The current exhibition, Keeping it Real, showcases just some of the highlights of our recent acquisitions. 2
The following individuals donated the works of art on view in this exhibition:
Mrs. Josephine Albarelli
Dr. Lorraine Kligman
Elaine D. and Bruce M. Ashton
Robert E. and Frances Coulborn Kohler
The Barra Foundation Art Acquisition Fund
William Knox
Frank Bender
Douglas and Camille Martenson
Dorothy J. del Bueno
Sarah McEneaney
Patricia T. Carbine
Ann E. and Donald W. McPhail
Dmitri and Sheila Chimes
Anita and Armand Mednick
Drs. Herbert and Faith Cohen
Peter Paone and Alma Alabilikian
Adrian Erlebacher
Dale and Lisa Roberts
Jonah Erlebacher
Stephen Robin
The Erlebacher Family
Kathy and Peter Rose
Ruth Fine
Bill Scott
The Janet Fleisher Investment Corporation
Dr. Manuel and Beatrice Sloane
Steven Ford and Ron Rumford
Christopher Smith
Frank Galuszka
Morton L. Smith
Aurora Gold
Carol Spruance
Eileen Goodman
Carl L. Steele
Roslyn Silverman Hahn
Joan L. Tobias
Noel Butcher Hanley
Barbara Torpie and Dr. Richard Torpie
Gretchen and Joseph Ingersoll
Bill and Acey Wolgin
Philip Jamison and Family
The Woodward Family
Jim’s of Lambertville
Joseph and Pamela Yohlin
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CONVERSATION WITH FRANK GALUSZKA On January 9, 2015, Rachel McCay, Assistant
can we define such a broad term?
Curator, and William Valerio, the Museum’s
FRANK GALUSZKA: I think about it all
Patricia Van Burgh Allison Director and CEO,
the time. Of course, there are all kinds of
spoke with artist Frank Galuszka about the
problems with realism. Even when you think
concept of realism in the arts and how it
of Gustave Courbet, who is sometimes
manifests in the exhibition Keeping It Real:
considered the canonical figure of realism
Recent Acquisitions of Narrative and Realist
that is imbued with a social component, it’s
Art.
not realistic. It’s a term that’s widely used,
WILLIAM VALERIO: Frank, as you know, we
but it’s a really problematic one. I think
had several goals in creating this exhibition:
Philadelphia’s realist artists are critical of
to show how Woodmere’s collection has
the use of the term and are aware of its
grown since 2011, to express our continued
shortcomings.
interest in the vein of realism that flourishes
VALERIO: In Tony Gorny’s Paperface
in Philadelphia, and to demonstrate the
(Broken Halos - Oh, I Know Where
various approaches to realism that artists
That Door Goes!) (1982) he makes direct
take. I know you’ve thought a lot about
reference to Courbet. In the image his head
what realism is, so I’d like to start today’s
is emerging through the floor of a museum
conversation by asking you a question: how
and on the wall is the famous Courbet
Paperface (Broken Halos - Oh, I Know Where That Door Goes!), 1982, by Anthony-Petr Gorny (Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013) 4
(1852). It references self-consciousness about what it means to be working in a realist mode. GALUSZKA: Gorny is very interesting. He puts together things from different genres. There’s something about printmakers. They’re alchemists and there’s a hermetic quality in the mysterious hidden processes in printmaking. VALERIO: It’s a remarkable image. Some people might think that a photograph is the most objective way to depict reality, but a photograph is not in fact realistic. A photograph is a distortion because it’s flat and the artist has chosen to include or exclude certain elements to create the composition. Above: Untitled Too, 2004–2005, by Don Kaiser (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Josephine Albarelli, 2013) Below: Untitled, 2004–2005, by Don Kaiser (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Josephine Albarelli, 2013)
GALUSZKA: You’re correct. Speaking of photographs—when I looked at the checklist for the exhibition I was immediately drawn to the two small digital collages by Don Kaiser, Untitled and Untitled Too. There’s a tension between the unusual nature of the objects
an objective realism. It’s hard to find any
and the intense detail and focus.
objective realism in the show, and that makes me happy, of course.
RACHEL MCCAY: That intense focus on visual perception—to the point of distortion—is
VALERIO: What do you mean by objective
something people will see consistently in the
realism?
works we’ve selected for this exhibition.
GALUSZKA: Objective realism suggests that
GALUSZKA: There’s a psychological
there’s an objective reality that artists have
dimension in all of the art in the show. Few of
access to. An artist who sought to create
these artists are making a real effort to create
work in an objectively realist manner would 5
conform to the physical appearance of the
absence is indicative of the artistic climate
subject as much as possible. In terms of
of Philadelphia. There’s a bit of rejection
technique, Martha Erlebacher’s work comes
of photo-realism in Philadelphia. Objective
very close to accomplishing this, but her
realism is mechanical realism, but I think
subject matter is oftentimes invented.
that Philadelphia artists are interested in psychology and communication and the inner
MCCAY: Would you consider an illustrator’s
life as it is mapped onto the external world.
work to be more objective?
There’s more of a sense of philosophical inquiry about what reality is and what an
GALUSZKA: Illustrators are trying to
emotional life is than there is in many other
communicate. They’re modifying the
places, and that, to me, unifies the work in
representational aspects of their work so
Philadelphia. It’s a distinguishing feature of
that it will communicate. I think that even
Philadelphia realism.
photo-realism is not objective. It’s interesting to note that there really aren’t examples of
VALERIO: Does that go back to Charles
photo-realism in this exhibition—I think that
Willson Peale? One of his best-known
The Death of Orpheus, 1997, by Martha Mayer Erlebacher (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Erlebacher Family, 2014) 6
paintings is The Artist in His Museum (1822),
is represented by some amazing works in
which depicts Peale revealing the cosmos
Woodmere’s collection.
he’s built. More than a questioning of reality,
GALUSZKA: Henri’s idea that art enables
Peale has unapologetically constructed his
each man or woman to give his or her
own reality inside the museum.
evidence to the world continues to serve as a
GALUSZKA: Yes. In Peale’s time, Philadelphia
foundation for many artists. To make a claim
was a place where intellectual inquiry
that realism is important, it has to be justified
flourished in the sciences, psychology,
in the face of, for instance, abstract art and
and medicine—and that’s still true today,
conceptual art. So, a lot of representational
of course. Those things are all connected.
work has an abstract dimension and a
Another connective thread is the fascination
conceptual dimension.
with games. Artists like David Pease and even
MCCAY: Philadelphia artists are particularly
to some extent Larry Day explore the idea of
adept at balancing the desire to create
the game, which is evidence of the influence
unique worlds in their paintings while
of Marcel Duchamp on Philadelphia artists.
maintaining social relevancy, two qualities
Duchamp is an intellectual conscience for
that at first appear somewhat contradictory.
Philadelphia artists and that could be one
Woodmere’s 2012 exhibition Haunting
of the reasons why so many artists take an
Narratives argued that a particular strain of
intellectual approach to representational or
realism in Philadelphia includes thematically
realist art.
dark and hauntingly strange works of
VALERIO: That’s a very interesting point
art. In the creation of their own realities,
because we think of Duchamp as being the
however, these artists refrain from creating
king of conceptual art, but what you’re saying
idiosyncratic works that are so divorced from
is that his message is specifically meaningful
reality that they become irrelevant. In fact,
to artists who work in the realist tradition.
many of the artists who create reconstructed realities have a true social agenda or a social
MCCAY: Another artist whose approach
relevance that is important.
has informed generations of realist artists is Robert Henri. He once wrote, “The American
GALUSZKA: There’s always been a social
who is useful as an artist is one who studies
conscience that has been a part of
his own life and records his experiences; in
Philadelphia, and the idea of the utopian
this way he gives evidence.” Social realism is
community is part of the foundations of
a particularly important facet of realism and
this city. There’s a social quality in the work 7
of Thomas Eakins too, especially if we look at the patient in relation to the physicians and the students in both of his operating theater paintings. In the twentieth century, Philadelphia artists like Albert Gold and Dox Thrash articulated their concern for social justice in their work. VALERIO: Benton Spruance, too. GALUSZKA: Right—then fast forward to one of the greatest social commentaries in this
Drawing for 24th and Ridge, c. 1940, by Dox Thrash (Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013)
show, Edie Neff’s Swimming Pool at Hunting Park (1977). She makes a statement about equality and integration without propaganda
relationships that are happening at that
and heavy-handedness.
moment.
VALERIO: Simply because it’s 1977 and it’s an
VALERIO: Did you know Edie Neff?
integrated pool. She depicts children who are completely innocent.
GALUSZKA: Yes, I knew her because she was teaching at the Philadelphia College of Art
GALUSZKA: The painting isn’t compromised
(now the University of the Arts), and she was
by self-righteousness—it’s simply showing
showing at Marian Locks’s gallery—I would
a moment in time in this place and the
see her, talk with her, and so on. I knew her work and I knew her over many years. VALERIO: Ron Bateman was a friend of yours too, isn’t that right? GALUSZKA: Yes, he was! That’s right. VALERIO: And we have a painting by him that was a gift from Ann and Don McPhail. It’s also like a game. You and he taught together
Dead Little Bird, 1945, by Benton Spruance (Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2014)
at Tyler (Temple University), correct?
8
GALUSZKA: We both taught beginning
much as possible—it takes part of its narrative
drawing classes. Ron has a great sense of
from the parable of the lost drachma, which
humor. He’s British. He lives in England now.
is a story about a woman looking for a coin. She’s meant to function as a stand-in for
VALERIO: What about your painting, Frank?
Jesus Christ, who searches out and finds lost
One of the things we wanted to discuss at
souls. The painting is only slightly about the
some point in this conversation was Laundry
story. I used the circumstance of the parable
(1986), which is a spectacular painting.
as a place to start thinking about losing, searching, and finding in a general way, and
GALUSZKA: Well, thank you. This painting
about the subjectivity of valuing something.
relates to something else that turns up in Martha Erlebacher’s work, and Edith Neff’s
VALERIO: You’ve told me about the lost
work, and Sidney Goodman’s work, and other
drachma, but I’ve always interpreted the
Philadelphia artists—that is, the interaction
painting in a different way. The black spout of
of contemporary people in a genre-type
the sink is a strong phallic form that echoes
painting that contains an underlying mythic
the shapes of the girl’s crouching back. The
element. Walter Erlebacher was very fond
girl is crouching down, as if searching, but
of mythology as well. In Laundry, if it has a
also turning away into the corner occupied
subject—and I try to obscure the subject as
by the chair. I’ve always interpreted this
Laundry, 1986, by Frank Galuszka (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2012)
9
painting as being about the loss of innocence,
based on a laundry room in the basement of
the loss of youth, the loss of the purity.
a house I was living in on Pulaski Avenue in Germantown.
GALUSZKA: I like your interpretation.
MCCAY: It’s a magnificent contemporary
VALERIO: It’s an interpretation for sure.
version of a parable that’s been depicted throughout art history.
GALUSZKA: My approach to painting, and maybe the approach of some of these other
GALUSZKA: Thank you. Can we switch topics
artists we’ve discussed, allows meaning to
and talk about Sarah McEneaney’s work?
emerge out of the unconscious. There’s a
You’re including Rio Grande Hot Springs
range of potential interpretations. Given the
(2009). Her self-portraits have a lot in
evidence of the imagery in the painting and
common with Edie Neff’s. All of McEneaney’s
given the unconscious quality at work in it, I
paintings depict a non-glamorous world that
think your interpretation is a great one, Bill.
Edie Neff also paints. I love that Neff has
The artist may have a special insight into the
included her bicycle, her potted plants, and
meaning of the work, but the artist doesn’t
images of paintings pinned to the wall. In
own the meaning of the work. I agree with
the midst of it she’s sitting in her underwear.
Salvador Dalí, who said, “The fact that I don’t
I’ve known Sarah McEneaney’s work for a
know what my paintings mean when I’m
long time. Her work, like Neff’s, is devoid of
painting them doesn’t mean that they have no meaning.” VALERIO: Other provocative, suggestive elements include the exhaust tube going out the window and an overturned pot. GALUSZKA: Yes, in a William-Adolphe Bouguereau painting, there’s a young girl who has lost her virginity and there’s a broken pot. MCCAY: Is this scene entirely invented? Or is this an actual room that you’ve been in?
Self-Portrait, 1971, by Edith Neff (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Barbara Torpie and Dr. Richard Torpie, 2013)
GALUSZKA: It’s partly invented and it’s partly
10
self-consciousness. There’s a quality of self-
Friendship is important in Philadelphia.
acceptance in both artists’ work.
Having lived in California for a number of years, I know there are more solitary, rugged
VALERIO: Rio Grande Hot Springs is a self-
individuals in California than in Philadelphia.
portrait of the artist and two friends. They’ve come across an abandoned hot spring, an
VALERIO: For me, coming to Philadelphia
earthy paradise.
from New York, I also realized that there is a real camaraderie here and less
GALUSZKA: McEneaney’s work is about how
competitiveness. There’s a positive spirit
much she values her friends, how much she
between artists, groups of artists, and artist
loves her dog, how much she loves painting.
collectives here in Philadelphia.
Her work is a real celebration of life without being kitschy or sentimental because it’s a
MCCAY: When you were talking about
homely life that she’s depicting. There is a
Sarah McEneaney and Edie Neff and their
genuine quality about her work that attracts
unselfconscious presentation of themselves
a lot of people to it.
and the directness of their work, I was thinking about John Lear, because his
VALERIO: I think you’ve phrased that very
work can be seen as the polar opposite of
beautifully.
theirs. Lear’s paintings are very posed and enigmatic. His work portrays an internal
GALUSZKA: McEneaney being together
emotional or mental brooding rather than a
with her friends brings to mind Larry Day’s
celebration of life.
drawings of his friends playing cards.
GALUSZKA: I completely agree. Lear’s work exudes alienation and a sense of fantasy. In Things Hanging (c. early 1940s), it’s as if Lear is conveying how the internal world of the artist is represented in the external world through the painting. The mysterious world he creates recalls the work of Walter Stuempfig, Roger Anliker, Paul Cadmus, and Jared French. Anliker’s Sun Alone (1948) is the perfect companion to Things Hanging, Rio Grande Hot Springs, 2009, by Sarah McEneaney (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2014)
and I’m so glad you’ll be hanging them together. 11
Left: Sun Alone, 1948, by Roger Anliker (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Roger and Lisa Roberts). Right: Things Hanging, c. early 1940s, by John Brock Lear (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Steven Ford, 2012)
MCCAY: We very recently acquired Sun Alone
a boy. He showed his work with the Hahn
(1948) by Roger Anliker. It’s a work that
Gallery in Chestnut Hill and is admired for
shows the influence of the larger surrealist
the virtuosity of his work. It’s only more
movement. He’s precariously balanced
recently that sensuality and the exploration
disparate objects on a thin piece of driftwood
of desire in his work have been considered.
in an environment, much like Lear’s, that is
In the 1940s, the homoeroticism that you see
indistinct and otherworldly.
in his paintings—not necessarily in Things Hanging, but in others—would have been
GALUSZKA: Anliker’s work is equally as
quite suspect.
abstract as it is representational. He painted abstract things and representational things,
GALUSZKA: There’s a great deal of work
and mostly his inclination was to create
that explores issues of personal isolation
things that didn’t look like things either in art
combined with poignant bits of alienation
or in nature, to create things that were very
and equally poignant bits of fantasy. There’s a
original and eccentric. He promoted that idea
strong tragic quality.
of trying to create things that were different
VALERIO: One of the major paintings that
from what other things looked like. Was Lear
we’re showing in this exhibition is Walter
connected with other artists?
Stuempfig’s Wood’s Quarry (date unknown).
VALERIO: Absolutely—in fact, he was very
He depicts a group of young men cavorting
connected to the history of this museum. He
in a quarry.
grew up in this community and was friendly
GALUSZKA: Stuempfig was not my teacher,
with the son of Charles Knox Smith, who is
I never met him, but I knew his work as I
the founder of Woodmere. Smith founded
was I was growing up because his work was
this museum with his collection, bought this
reproduced nationally. This painting reminds
estate, and John Lear used to play here as 12
me of Pontormo’s Pharaoh with His Butler
Gold are also represented in this exhibition.
and Baker (c. 1515).
There’s a divide in the exhibition between artists like Lear or Anliker, who come out
VALERIO: Pontormo’s figures, like
of Magic Realism and are fundamentally
Stuempfig’s, are mannered, twisted, and
introverted, and artist like Paone, who have
eroticized. There’s one standing figure whose
similar origins in their thinking but are
arm is twisted backwards so that you see
extroverted and are making social messages.
the palm of his hand even though he’s facing away. That kind of in-your-face distortion
VALERIO: Paone describes his work as
of the figure combined with the organic
“reality reassembled.” His creative process
realism—textures of hairy skin against stone—
launches from observations of the social
makes it such a powerful image to me.
world, as you say, but it’s reassembled through ideas, technical virtuosity, and
GALUSZKA: It’s very mannerist.
visual imagination. And yes, he himself acknowledges the inspiration of Magic
VALERIO: Frank, I know you’re friendly with
Realism, an American type of surrealism, but
Peter Paone. We’re including a painting
he also has ties to European modernism—
by him called The Mourners (1966). It’s a
Cubism especially, and the work of Georges
representation of the women in his family
Braque. This is often apparent in the forms
mourning the passing of his father. How do
he makes. There’s something in the linkages
you see his work fitting into the spectrum of realism that we’ve discussed? GALUSZKA: I see Paone’s early work emerging out of the American tradition of Magic Realism. He is also a socially engaged person and his work is inspired by three important mentors of the previous generation: Ben Shahn, Benton Spruance, and Albert Gold, all of them great printmakers who engaged with the social plight of humanity in their times. Paone actually perfected his printing technique as a young
The Mourners, 1966, by Peter Paone (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Joan L. Tobias, 2010)
artist, pulling prints for both Shahn and Spruance, and it’s great that Spruance and
13
between shapes and the distortion of forms
He combined powerful expression with
in The Mourners, as well as the elegiac
representation in a way that I could relate to.
sentiment, that reminds me of Pablo Picasso’s
He was always a genuine artist.
Three Musicians (1921), one of the best-known
MCCAY: Yes, we’re thrilled to include these
modern paintings in Philadelphia.
recently conserved works in the exhibition.
GALUSZKA: Paone’s work seems to
I’m always interested in considering how the
epitomize the idea of a hermetic world of
specific institutions of Philadelphia informed
one’s own created by the artist. It’s intensely psychological. In The Mourners there’s a contrast between each individual person depicted and the common role they share as mourners. It suggests that everyone is alone with grief, but also linked by it to one another, particularly in a family. Each of the mourners is unified by having the same role, but each of them is expressing grief as an individual. VALERIO: It’s a wonderful painting. Another pair of works that we’re very proud to be showing are the two large works on paper Disbelieving Onlookers (1960) and Campaign Pep Rally (1959) by Sidney Goodman. We just had them restored. GALUSZKA: I knew Sidney Goodman for a long time—I saw his work before I met him. When I was in high school, I was fortunate to have known an art critic named Selden Rodman who had a collection of representational art at his house in New Jersey. It included some very early Goodman work, and I was just knocked out by it. I Campaign Pep Rally, 1959, by Sidney Goodman (Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013)
met Goodman at a New Year’s Eve party forty years ago. It was like meeting an idol. 14
artists and, for our purposes, it would be
realism than there was then, and a lot of it is
interesting to consider how the trajectories
more derivative and less interesting than it
of realism were determined by the faculty
was when people were inventing a language
or academic curriculum of Philadelphia’s
for encoding a large number of decisions
schools.
that were being made by these artists about how the world looked, and these decisions
GALUSZKA: I’m thinking about that question
were visual and theoretical and so on. Now
quite a bit as well. I’m most familiar with Tyler,
there are a lot of people who are studying
but I know a lot of people at the Pennsylvania
painting in an academic way. To me, it’s less
Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), the
interesting than the revolutionary moment.
University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, and Moore College of Art and Design, as well
VALERIO: I’d love to hear you talk a little bit
as the University of the Arts, because I taught
about Ben Kamihira. Was he somebody that
there when it was the Philadelphia College
you knew here in Philadelphia?
of Art. Sometimes students emulate their
GALUSZKA: He was a marvelous person
teachers. But good teachers are also rebelled
and very humble for somebody who was so
against. There’s often a resistance to one’s
accomplished. He was showing at the More
teachers, so sometimes there isn’t a concrete
Gallery. In the 1980s and 1990s, the More
imitation of them. When the resurgence of
Gallery was a clubhouse as well as a gallery.
realism occurred in the 1970s in Philadelphia
The artists who showed there would meet
and elsewhere it was a challenge, a
one another there. There was socializing
revolution, a fight against the hegemony of
going on day by day—nothing organized, but
the art that was prevalent.
people would drop in.
VALERIO: Walter Erlebacher, for example,
VALERIO: Thinking about teachers and
was inventing something new when he
students and generational legacies, I’m
studied the ignudi of Michelangelo and used
looking at Kamihira’s Still Life with Plaster
them as a vehicle for his own understanding
Masks (date unknown), and imagining how it
of how the muscles of the human body
will look juxtaposed with the large drawing
interact with gravity. He turned to
by Penelope Harris that we’re going to
Michelangelo because there was no sculptor
have in the show. Harris was a student of
of his own generation that could offer what
Kamihira’s at PAFA. Both of those works
he needed.
I think are very much about relationships
GALUSZKA: You’re correct. Now there’s more
between ordinary objects that take on an 15
erotic dimension. The vegetables are very
changed?
sensual. The seashell is very sensuous and
GALUSZKA: It’s proliferated so much—there’s
suggestive of body parts. I think you feel that
a lot more of it now than there was fifty
as well with the Harris, where the pumpkins
or sixty years ago. The mission of realism
and squashes are phallic forms and breast-
is not uniform. Every interesting realist is
like forms that tease each other, just touching
inquiring about a reality in a different way
or almost touching, or touching through their
and is reflecting or creating a different reality.
shadows.
Realism was criticized as a form of illustration
GALUSZKA: Works are usually criticized
at a certain time, and the idea that it was
when the forms touch. It’s called “kissing.”
illustrative was just regarded as a negative
Teachers will tell you when you’re learning to
quality. Now people feel it’s OK if the work
draw that if the forms are kissing, you’ve got
is illustrative. There’s a lot more acceptance
to overlap them or separate them.
of representational work, and I think the post-modern condition allows for all kinds of
VALERIO: I know Penny Harris well enough
things to exist side by side. There’s a certain
to say that if somebody told her, “It’s
edge to the challenge that’s gone, but that’s
discouraged to allow forms to kiss like that,”
not to say that there isn’t a good deal of
she would say, “OK, I’m going to make an
interesting and exciting work being done.
image in which all the forms kiss and it’s going to work as an image.” She would take
VALERIO: It sounds like what you champion
the challenge.
is a kind of realism that pushes beyond appearances, through the use of distortion
GALUSZKA: That’s one of the things that
or gaming and trickery or the expression of
artists do. They take anything they’re told
some kind of desire.
not to do and they try to do it. There is a
GALUSZKA: Yes, desire especially. I want to
rebellious quality in all of them.
talk briefly about Arthur B. Carles, because
VALERIO: That’s what I particularly love
he’s such an important artist. Carles basically
about working with realism and the arts. It’s
followed the path of Henri Matisse. When
very rebellious, and it can be a transgressive
Carles went to France, he saw everything that
type of art. You just have to give yourself
was going on there and he realized that the
over to it and accept it on the terms of the
United States was so far behind. He had a
conversation that it’s creating.
really strong intellectual curiosity. He also had a really strong personal view about color that
MCCAY: Frank, how do you think realism has 16
didn’t suit the realistic work he’d been doing up to that point. He probably liked purple more than any artist in history. MCCAY: His complete non-naturalistic use of color pushed him to dissolve the forms of his compositions. I think his particular form of
Portrait of Mrs. Carles and Sara, c. 1907, by Arthur B. Carles (Promised gift of Philip Jamison)
abstraction started with his use of color. GALUSZKA: I agree, and that’s why I think he aligned with Matisse more than Picasso. If he was holding onto the descriptive line at the same time that he was using wild color,
VALERIO: I love the way my friend Brian
it would undercut the general violence of his
Peterson describes American art as having a
work.
quality of “what you see is what you get.”
VALERIO: Carles’s imprint on the arts in
GALUSZKA: Yes. The two sculptures that
Philadelphia can’t be overstated; whether I’m
you have in the show have a no-nonsense
looking at the color of Sarah McEneaney or
quality about them. They’re very stable, very
Edith Neff, there’s something about Carles’s
straightforward.
joy in the embrace of color that seems
VALERIO: We’re thrilled to include Chris
present. Carles is not often discussed as a
Smith’s Sankofa Kore (2011). It will become
realist, but I feel a great deal of realism in his
a permanent part of our outdoor sculpture
early work especially, and in his work in this
after the exhibition. It’s an amazingly
exhibition, Portrait of Mrs. Carles and Sara (c.
powerful work. Well, thank you, Frank. This
1907). Our mutual friend, the artist Bill Scott,
has been an enlightening conversation.
says it’s easy to understand the influence of Cecilia Beaux on Carles through the realism
GALUSZKA: Thank you. Yes, this has
of this painting. Beaux was Carles’s teacher at
been very enjoyable. This is an impressive
PAFA.
exhibition.
GALUSZKA: There’s plenty of toughness about it, too. That’s an American quality, or possibly a Philadelphia thing. There’s a tough quality about Carles’s hand rather than the exceptionally light touch of some Europeans. 17
Dorothy J. del Bueno Balcony gallery Woodmere Art Museum 18
Dorothy J. del Bueno Balcony Gallery With this exhibition, Woodmere celebrates the growth of its collection and recent acquisitions that have been made since 2011. We also explore the idea of realism in the arts through paintings, sculpture, and works on paper that date from the late nineteenth century to the present. Works of art appear in this catalogue in the order in which they are installed in the galleries. We hope that the juxtapositions that we offered to the visitors to our museum make sense or are provactive to you, the reader of this catalogue. We provide photographs of the gallery installation so the scale of the works relative to each other and the gallery appearance can be recorded. From generation to generation, the artists of Philadelphia have taken various approaches to representing the tangible subjects of the human experience, composing meaningful, if often mysterious narratives. In many different ways, they explore the sensuality of their subjects in the context of broader social forces and emotions. In general, the artists of our times recognize that even the most meticulously-rendered depictions on a two-dimensional surface or the most “realistic� sculpture in the round can only offer approximations of appearances. Woodmere is grateful to the many individuals who, in support of our mission to celebrate the artists of Philadelphia, have entrusted us with the stewardship of great works of art. We express special appreciation to the many donors whose gifts of art will be included in future exhibitions. Woodmere expresses thanks and appreciation to an anonymous donor and to Dr. Dorothy J. del Bueno for their generous support of this exhibition.
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Anthony-Petr Gorny American, born 1950 Paperface (Broken Halos — Oh, I Know Where That Door Goes!) 1982 Mixed printmaking techniques including lithography
a trajectory of thought regarding the history of realism in the arts. Courbet is regarded as the father of modern realism. Gorny conveys his passion for the historic painting, but at the same time suggests the necessity to break through normative boundaries and shake the walls of tradition. It is all a big mystery, as the cloud-like jigsaw puzzle parts above would suggest. Gorny’s work often
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
explores the memory of objects and their
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persistence in the physical world. Gorny received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from SUNY College Buffalo in 1972 and a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University School of Art in 1974. His artwork is included in nearly 100 public collections including the Brooklyn Museum; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; Franklin Institute; and the National Gallery, Washington, D.C. He is the recipient of a number of awards and grants including a National Endowment for the Arts grant; Pennsylvania Council for the Arts grant; a Pew Fellowships in the Arts; and Philadelphia Fairmount Park Commission. Gorny previously taught at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; Bryn Mawr College; Pratt Institute of Art;
Anthony-Petr Gorny’s self-portrait is ”boxed”
University of the Arts, Philadelphia; University
in a gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of
of Arizona, Tucson; and the San Francisco Art
Art. On the wall at left, Gustave Courbet’s
Institute.
Young Ladies of the Village (1852), establishes 21
22
John Brock Lear American, 1910–2008 Things Hanging c. early 1940s Oil on board
dream-like, barren landscape. A red eggshaped form and a white piece of paper are suspended within a strange forest of vertical posts. The enigmatic, Surrealistinspired setting is an extension of the artist’s brooding expression and internal psychological complexity.
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Steven Ford, 2012
A lifelong resident of Chestnut Hill, Lear played at Woodmere in his childhood; from boyhood through life he remained the friend of the son of our museum’s founder, Charles Knox Smith. He attended the Chestnut Hill Academy and the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (now University of the Arts). During World War II, Lear’s drawing abilities caught the attention of highranking officials at Fort Riley, Kansas, where he made portraits of the generals and officers. He also illustrated military manuals, books, and charts. Lear taught illustration at Rosemont College and was an instructor at the Hussian School of Art and Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts). His works are in the collections of the Philadelphia
Although John Lear is better known as
Museum of Art, Woodmere Art Museum,
a virtuoso watercolorist, his oil paintings
the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, the
are also highly prized. Here the artist
Reading Public Museum, as well as other
depicts himself against the backdrop of a
institutions in Canada and Mexico. 23
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Roger Anliker American, 1924–2013 Sun Alone 1948 Gouache on board
by his service as a mapmaker in World War II with the Army’s 16th Armored Division. The careful intricacies of the cartographer’s art are reflected in the work he made throughout the remainder of his long career. He also attended the American University at Biarritz in France after serving in World War II.
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Dale and
Sun Alone was made in the years following
Lisa Roberts, 2015
the artist’s service in the war. His friend Bert Palmer, with whom he had served, is depicted amidst a collection of evocative objects that seem balanced ever so precariously. The painting seems to ask: who are we? Where do we go from here? From 1948 to 1963, Anliker was an associate professor of painting and drawing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where his most famous student was Andy Warhol. Anliker was a professor of painting and drawing at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art from 1963 until 1988. He is represented in the permanent collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, the Akron Art Museum, and the Carnegie Museum of Art. He had numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout his career at institutions such as the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of
Roger Anliker was born in Akron, Ohio.
American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago,
He graduated in 1947 from the Cleveland
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,
Institute of Art with a Bachelor of Fine Arts
and the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris.
degree. His schooling was briefly interrupted
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26
Julius Bloch American, 1888–1966 City Dweller 1963 Oil on canvas
Julius Bloch was dedicated to creating images of city life. An advocate for the equality of races, he often depicted African American figures and vignettes that show integration in the modern city. Here Bloch depicts a young man against a background of architectural forms. He had recently
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
traveled to Ravenna, Italy, where he was
purchase, 2012
inspired by the powerful stylization of the figures in early Byzantine mosaics. Bloch enjoyed a successful career, showing his work nationally and internationally. He also exhibited regularly at the Pyramid Club, a social and cultural club for African American professionals in the city. The Pyramid Club held annual invitational exhibitions, open to both black and white artists. Bloch was born in Germany in 1888. His family came to the U.S. when he was five years-old and settled in Philadelphia, where he lived for his entire life. After graduating from Central High School, he attended the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts), the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), and the Barnes Foundation. Bloch served in the U.S. Army in WWI, and became an active participant in Works Progress Administration programs in Philadelphia. For several decades, he taught at PAFA.
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Anastasia Alexandrin American, born Ukraine 1985 Boy 2007 Acrylic on Panel
In this small painting, Anastasia Alexandrin depicts the penetrating gaze of a young man. He seems content as he stares out at the viewer through large, round eyeglasses and a wild mane of wind-swept hair. The artist seems to suggest that the process of visual engagement is mitigated by the
Promised gift of Peter Paone
accoutrements and affectations of life that have an impact on how we see and how we are seen. Born in Kharkov, Ukraine, Alexandrin moved with her family to Philadelphia at the age of five. She is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she studied with Peter Paone. She lives and works in Philadelphia.
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Joseph Hirsch American, 1910–1981 Clown Head date unknown Lithograph
Joseph Hirsch’s lithograph presents a closeup portrait of a man’s face with clown makeup. The exaggerated mouth and painted eyes of the makeup seem to expose rather than disguise the intensity of his expression. Hirsch began his study of art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art when he was
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Peter
seventeen. He studied privately with George
Paone and Alma Alabilikian, 2015
Luks, one of The Eight, whose exhibition in 1908 sought to capture everyday life of urban reality. Hirsch participated in the Works Project Administration in the easel painting division, with occasional work in the mural division and became an artist war correspondent during World War II. Social commentary became the backbone for the majority of his paintings. He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship and was elected into the National Academy of Design in 1958. His work is in many collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and many others.
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Peter Paone American, born 1936 The Mourners 1966 Oil on canvas
of Magic Realism and are fundamentally introverted, and artists like Peter who have similar origins in their thinking but are extroverted and are making social messages. VALERIO: Peter describes his work as “reality reassembled.” His creative process launches from observations of the social world, as
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Joan L.
you say, but it is reassembled through ideas,
Tobias, 2010
technical virtuosity, and visual imagination. And yes, he himself acknowledges the inspiration of Magic Realism, an American type of surrealism, but he also has ties to European modernism—Cubism especially and
This painting was the subject of an exchange
the work of Georges Braque. This is often
between William Valerio, The Patricia Van
apparent in the forms he makes. There’s
Burgh Allison Director and CEO and artist
something in the linkages between shapes
Frank Galuszka that appears earlier in this
and the distortion of forms in The Mourners,
catalogue:
as well as the elegiac sentiment that reminds me of Picasso’s Three Musicians, one of the
GALUSZKA: I see [Peter’s] early work, like
most well-known modern paintings.
that of Sidney Goodman, emerging out of the American tradition of Magic Realism. Peter is
Paone attended the Philadelphia Museum
also a socially-engaged person and his work
School of Art (now the University of the
is inspired by three important mentors of
Arts), where he received a bachelor of fine
the previous generation: Ben Shahn, Benton
arts degree in art education. His work has
Spruance, and Albert Gold, all of them great
been exhibited at national and international
printmakers who engaged with the social
institutions, and he has held senior teaching
plight of humanity in their times. Paone
positions at both Pratt Institute and the
actually perfected his printing technique as a
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
young artist pulling prints for both Shahn and
(PAFA). While at PAFA, he established the
Spruance, and it’s great that Spruance and
printmaking department and served as the
Gold are also represented in the exhibition.
department’s first chair. He was also the vice
There’s a divide in the exhibition between
president of the Print Club (now the Print
artists like Lear or Anliker, who come out
Center) for six years. 33
34
Julius Bloch American, 1888–1966 Immigrants date unknown Oil on canvas
Julius Bloch presents an intimate portrait of the faces of immigrants. Choosing to compose this scene in a long and narrow canvas, Bloch is calling attention to the compressed space of their environment and focuses on the seriousness in their eyes. Only two faces of women look forward in
Promised gift of Dorothy J. del Bueno
contrast to the profiles of others. The vibrant red of the woman’s coat in the foreground distinguishes her amidst the cluster of dark coats and hats. The rhythms of blues across the distant background suggest the distances and oceans they travelled. Bloch was strongly influenced by the Ashcan School artists’ depiction of urban life and concerns about social issues. Bloch became one of the main proponents of social realism in America. He worked under the Easel Division of the Public Works projects and starting publishing lithographs for the socialist magazine, The New Masses, in 1934, the year Eleanor Roosevelt selected his painting, Young Worker for the permanent collection of the White House. He participated in the Artists for Victory exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1942 and was an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for over fifteen years.
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Albert Gold American, 1916–2006 Siesta c. 1939–41 Oil on canvas
Draftsmanship and craftsmanship are becoming quite rare. If you want to be remarkable in our times, try to draw.
—Albert Gold
Albert Gold practiced a distinct form of social
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Aurora
realism, focusing on the gritty atmosphere of
Gold, 2014
urban life and the everyday drama in the lives of working people. In this painting, a group of workers sleep on a dock, exhausted after a long day of labor. Gold was raised in North Philadelphia and received a scholarship to the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts). He was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome of the American Academy in Rome, but was unable to go as he had been drafted into the United States Army. He became an official Army combat artist in Europe during World War II, and participated in the invasion of Normandy in June, 1944. Hundreds of his war drawings and watercolors are in the collection of the Pentagon. After the war, Gold taught at the Philadelphia Museum School as well as the Fleisher Art Memorial and the Pyle Studio in Delaware. His work has been exhibited at the Musée Galliera in Paris, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and Woodmere Art Museum, and is in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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George Biddle American, 1885–1973 Untitled (Three Figures with Gravestones) 1930 Lithograph
white accentuate the painful reality of life’s tragedies. George Biddle, a member of the distinguished Philadelphia Biddle family, is considered a leading American painter, printmaker, and muralist of the twentieth century. After receiving a law degree from Harvard University, his passion for art led
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Jim’s of
him to abandon the law profession and
Lambertville, 2014
commence formal artistic training, first at the Académie Julian in Paris and then at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He was friends with the great Mexican painter and muralist, Diego Rivera, whose murals of politics, history, and workers’ struggles was a profound inspiration. In the 1930s, Biddle became a champion of socially-purposed art, and he advocated for government support of artists. He is credited with having convinced his friend and former schoolmate, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, that art had to be a central element in the concept of the New Deal. This resulted in the Federal Art Project of the Works Project Administration (WPA). Biddle was instrumental in building the infrastructure of the WPA thereby bringing employment to artists across the nation. He was chairman
This lithograph is a symbolic drama of
of the US War Artists Committee and served
sorrow and social injustice. The mother of
as an artist-observer of the Nuremberg
the deceased extends her arms and hands in
war trials. He continued his service as
grief, kneeling over the grave of her husband
an ambassador though subsequent US
and son. The stark contrasts of black and
presidencies. 39
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Charles Searles American, 1937–2004 Untitled (Boxer) 1963 India ink and watercolor
Although Searles is best known for his stylized and colorful abstraction inspired by African art, his earliest works are representations of the figure in urban contexts. In this watercolor, a boxer is seated at rest, gazing out into the ring. A symbolic figure, he represents all individuals for whom
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
life is a struggle. Searles is remembered to
purchase, 2012
have said on multiple occasions, “Two things you learn when you grow up in Philly: how to dance and how to fight!” Born in Philadelphia, Searles studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and received both the Cresson Memorial Travel Scholarship and the Ware Memorial Travel Scholarship, using the second award to travel to West Africa in 1971. He was an active member of Philadelphia’s art community and maintained connections with Philadelphia throughout his life, even after moving to New York in 1978.
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Ethel V. Ashton American, 1896–1975 Cotton Candy 1952 Oil on canvas on board
In his immensely popular book, The Art Spirit (1923), Henri encouraged artists of the modern age to depict the transformations of life in the 20th-century metropolis. Ashton’s work seems to conjure his exhortation to artists, “Paint what you feel. Paint what you see. Paint what is real to you.” Ashton’s
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Elaine D.
representations of African American families
and Bruce M. Ashton, 2013
and friends are wonderful for their ease, straightforwardness, and deliberate refusal to repeat normative stereotypes. Ashton graduated from the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art & Design) in 1921. She made several trips to Europe to see art
Ethel Ashton’s family recalled that on
and visit museums. In the summer of 1923
weekends, she was often out in the city with
she spent three months in Paris, Rome,
her pastels, sketching scenes of urban leisure.
Florence, and London. Ashton travelled
Her studio was close to Washington and
extensively throughout her life, visiting
Rittenhouse Squares in Philadelphia, where
Spain, Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Trinidad,
the day-to-day lives of the people sharing the
and Panama, among other locations.
city’s public spaces were continuous sources
From the 1930s through the 1960s Ashton
of inspiration. She often depicted African
frequently showed her work in Philadelphia
American individuals and families. Like
and beyond, participating in exhibitions
her friend Julius Bloch, whose work is also
at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
hanging nearby, she was ahead of her time
Arts (PAFA), Woodmere Art Museum,
in showcasing the integration of people of
the Brooklyn Museum (now the Brooklyn
different races as an attribute of the modern
Museum of Art), Philadelphia’s Graphic
city. Like many artists of her generation,
Sketch Club (now the Samuel S. Fleisher Art
Ashton’s fascination with urban subjects may
Memorial), and the American Color Print
have been inspired by the ideas of Robert
Society. For over a decade Ashton was the
Henri (1865–1929), a great Realist painter of
librarian and manager of the Fellowship
Philadelphia and leader of the Ashcan School.
program at PAFA. 43
44
Robert Riggs American, 1896–1970 Germantown and Chelten date unknown Lithograph
Robert Riggs was a painter and a prolific printmaker who made almost one hundred lithographs during the 1930s and 1940s on subjects ranging from hospital wards, circuses, and boxing events. He studied at the Art Students’ League in New York from 1915–1917. After serving in World War I, he
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the
worked in Philadelphia as a commercial
Estate of Dr. Manuel and Beatrice Sloan,
artist, receiving advertising and commercial
2014
illustration commissions from insurance companies and magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Fortune, and Life. As a graphic artist he was inspired by artists of a previous generation in Philadelphia, such Violet Oakley, the city’s great illustrator, whose work is on view in this gallery. In his non-commercial work, Riggs mastered and synthesized the atmosphere and didactic impulse of the illustration arts of Philadelphia and applied this to the social realism of his time. Here he depicts a busy corner in Germantown. Children, men in suits, and young women cross the bustling intersection. Whether due to the social and economic upheavals of the Great Depression or to the impending violence of the Second World War, Riggs’s later work took on a decidedly darker tone, expressing the strange relationship of individuals to the inexplicably unstable world around them.
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Dox Thrash American, 1892–1965 Drawing for 24th and Ridge c. 1940 Graphite on paper
Two women stop to chat on a street corner in Dox Thrash’s drawing of 24th Street and Ridge Avenue in Philadelphia. Thrash recorded the social realities of his times, and here the relaxed atmosphere of the busy city is reassuring, beautiful. The peaceful moment at the intersection is rendered in subtle
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
shades of gray.
purchase, 2013
This drawing was purchased at auction, and it comes from the collection of celebrity Oprah Winfrey. Thrash is most well-known for his significant contributions to the field of printmaking. He invented the carborundum mezzotint printing process while working as a WPA artist from 1936 to 1939. The carborundum process produces a broad range of dark velvety tones ranging from pale gray to deep black. Thrash’s career as an artist began at the Art Institute in Chicago, but was interrupted when he was drafted into the army in 1917. Eventually he moved to Philadelphia, studied at the Graphic Sketch Club (now the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial), and there, under the direction of Earl Horter, made his earliest prints. His work is in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; the National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Philadelphia Public Library; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; among others. 47
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Ben Rose American, 1916–1980 Untitled (Power Lines, 30th St. Station) c. 1940 Gelatin silver print
Ben Rose attended the Pennsylvania Museum School for Industrial Arts (now University of the Arts) in the late 1930s, where he was a student of Alexey Brodovitch, the renowned Russian-born photographer and graphic designer. Rose captures in silhouette the great network of cables that fill the sky over the railroad
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Kathy
tracks at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station.
and Peter Rose, 2013
The stark drama and complex patterns of abstract shapes recall the work of European avant-garde photographers and those of the Bauhaus that Rose was exposed to by his teacher Brodovitch. Rose enjoyed an international career as an artist and commercial photographer. He introduced numerous mechanical and technological innovations in the fields of photography and graphic design. His work is in museum collections world-wide, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.
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Catherine Mulligan American, born 1987
Catherine Mulligan takes her subjects from
Save-a-lot (day) 2014 Oil on Masonite
reference when she paints. She creates
her experiences in the city of Philadelphia and typically uses photographs for detailed underpaintings and uses multiple glazes, building up forms gradually and incrementally. Taco Bell is inspired by a view seen from a moving bus. The artist
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
explains, “I was thinking of framing a modern
purchase, 2013
city street in the language of Canaletto’s cityscapes. This should read as specific and precise but fleeting and trivial.” Both
Taco Bell 2014 Oil on paper
Taco Bell and Save-a-lot (day) depict an unapologetic portrayal of the contemporary urban landscape populated with fast food chains, supermarkets, and advertisements of all kinds. The dissolving forms also suggest
Promised gift of Dorothy J. del Bueno
the rapid speed of contemporary life where information and communication is shared on a global level instantaneously. Mulligan received a certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and her BFA from the University of Pennsylvania. She was the 2012 recipient of a grant from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation and was also awarded a residency at Vermont Studio Center.
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Earl Horter American, 1880–1940
agency in Philadelphia and third largest in
Naples Tenements date unknown Etching
consisting of drawings, lithographs, and
the country. Throughout his career, Horter produced a tremendous body of work etchings that depict large cities such as Philadelphia and New York. In his etching of Naples, Italy, he captures the activity a busy market scene where a merchant sells goods
Naples 1914 Watercolor and graphite on paper
from a cart. A clothing line covered in laundry is suspended behind a woman sitting on a bench. Horter played an important role in introducing modern art to Philadelphia, not
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Roslyn
only as an artist and teacher but, also as a
Silverman Hahn, 2013
collector. Throughout the 1930s, he taught at the Philadelphia Museum School (now the University of the Arts) and Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, exposing students to the formal innovations of the cubist artists. His works are in numerous public collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; and the Free Library of Philadelphia. His collection, which was exhibited in 1999 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in
Earl Horter was born in Germantown,
their exhibition, Mad for Modernism: Earl
Philadelphia. He was a self-taught artist who
Horter and His Collection, included African
engraved stock certificates as a teenager. A
sculptures and Native American artifacts
superb draftsman and technician, Horter was
as well as works by seminal modern artists
first employed as a commercial artist working
Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Marcel
for N.W. Ayer, the largest advertising
Duchamp, and Constantin Brancusi.
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Melvin A. Chappell American, born 1954 The Factory 2012 Digital inkjet print
Here his subject is the Willow Street Steam Generation Plant, a gigantic abandoned steam plant that was constructed on Willow Street near Callowhill in 1927 by the Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO). For about fifty years, the structure functioned as part of the steam-generation grid of
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
Philadelphia, using energy from coal to
purchase, 2014
generate steam. It has been abandoned for almost thirty years, and has escaped the wrecking ball only because large quantities of heavy industrial equipment and asbestos make demolition exceedingly expensive. Chappell was attracted to the symbolism and monumental stature of this relic of Philadelphia’s industrial heyday; its smokestacks are 163 feet in height. In Chappell’s photograph, the building rises from the bottom edge of the tableau, slightly off kilter, seemingly ready to dissolve into the clear sky. Wispy trees and suggestions of vegetation are visible, perhaps a signal that they may eventually overtake the structure. Chappell noted, “I had known the giant building by sight and have watched rust overtake the metal parts of its outer shell from year to year as I drove past on the Vine
Melvin A. Chappell photographs the beauty
Street Expressway. When I came upon it and
of Philadelphia, usually pointing the lens of
realized it was abandoned, it became both
his camera on the drama of the Wissahickon
sad and fascinating to me. I had to figure out
or an atmospheric moment in Fairmount
a way to make a photograph, because one
Park. He also photographs the man-made
day, maybe soon, it will be gone.”
environment. 55
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Philip Jamison American, born 1925 John Chadd’s House c. 1958 Watercolor
Philip Jamison’s inspiration comes from his immediate environment and the two places he calls home: Chester County, Pennsylvania, and Vinalhaven, Maine. His subjects range from still lifes to domestic and studio interiors. His work often presents the changing landscape of Chester County and
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Philip
Maine. Jamison’s John Chadd’s House is a
Jamison and Family, 2012
portrait of the historic home of John Chadds, built around 1713 and called a “bank house” because it was built into the side of a hill. Jamison portrays the solitary home, up on the hill. The solidness and geometry of the stone wall, distinctive from the atmospheric surroundings, create a disparity between the man-made and nature. A silhouette of a ghostly tree merges into a shadowy and haunting sky. The house is located on Route 100 in Chadds Ford and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Jamison was born in Philadelphia. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he graduated from the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts). His work has been widely exhibited at museums and galleries including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Delaware Art Museum. He was elected as a member of the National Academy of Design and is a member of the American Watercolor Society.
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Francis Speight American, 1896–1989 Spring in Manayunk 1932 Oil on canvasboard
Francis Speight painted many landscapes in and around Philadelphia, focusing on the transformations of the modern city. In this fresh, spontaneous painting he captures the hilly landscape of Manayunk. Speight was born in Windsor, North Carolina. He lived most of his life in Doylestown,
Promised gift of Philip Jamison
Pennsylvania. The artist studied at both the Corcoran School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). He became an associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1937 and a full member in 1940. His works have been exhibited at the National Academy of Design and at PAFA, where he won numerous prizes.
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Thomas Hovenden American, 1840–1995 The Last Moments of John Brown c. 1882–84 Pen and ink
Hovenden’s focus on the emotional moment when John Brown, heavily guarded, bends down to kiss an African American baby as he is escorted to the gallows. For Hovenden, Brown was a hero; in the pre-Civil war era, he had advocated the overthrow of slavery by force. In the postCivil-War era, it seemed that his actions
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
predicted the terrible but inevitable violence
purchase, 2013
of the war. It is known that Hovenden, who lived at the corner of Germantown Pike and Butler Pike in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, asked friends and neighbors to pose for the different characters in the tableau. Thomas Hovenden is known for his sensitive portrayals of the rituals of home and family life. Born in Ireland, he was orphaned when he was six. He immigrated to the United States and studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City and then in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts where he met his future wife, Helen Corson. Following their marriage, the couple settled at the Corson family home in Plymouth Meeting,
In 1882, a wealthy New York businessman,
Pennsylvania. The Corson’s barn was known
Robbins Battell, commissioned the
as “Abolition Hall” and was used frequently
Philadelphia artist Thomas Hovenden
for anti-slavery gatherings and later as
to produce a historical painting of the
Hovenden’s studio. Hovenden was appointed
abolitionist leader John Brown. This
professor of painting and drawing at the
preparatory drawing for the finished painting
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in
(which now hangs in the Metropolitan
1886, replacing Thomas Eakins, who had been
Museum of Art in New York) shows
forced to resign. 61
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Mary Cassatt American, 1844–1926 Bill in Coat and Cap c. 1889 Drypoint on laid paper
Mary Cassatt captures the mystery and innocence of childhood in this image of mother and son. Subtle details, such as the child’s plump cheeks, the position of tiny fingers, and the roundness of arms, add warmth and intimacy to this portrait. Cassatt was well known for images that depict
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
mothers and children in everyday life.
purchase, 2012
Born to a large, affluent family in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), Cassatt studied from 1860 to 1862 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, one of the few art schools in the United States open to women students at that time. After graduation, Cassatt traveled to Europe and, like many American artists of the day, received further training in Paris. She settled there for most of her life, becoming the only American artist to participate in the seminal exhibitions of Impressionism in the 1870s.
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Violet Oakley American, 1847–1961 Portrait of Italian Coloratura Soprano Amelita Galli-Curci 1918 Pastel on paper
Here we show Oakley’s sketch of Galli-Curci, made in red pastel from a live portrait sitting. Galli-Curci was a reigning prima donna of the Metropolitan Opera, and whether the two divas met in Philadelphia or New York remains unknown. Galli-Curci wears a Spanish comb in her hair,
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
perhaps a costume for her role as Rosina
purchase, 2014
in The Barber of Seville. At right, we show gestural sketches that Oakley made of the singer moving on stage. She likely watched her perform and sketched from the audience (see an example on the next page). GalliCurci inscribed the portrait study for Oakley in Italian, writing: “For the fraternal sentiment that unites you to my country.” Oakley signed the drawing below Galli-Curci’s signature. Oakley was a great painter, illustrator, and muralist who advocated that the artist’s role was essentially social and should be engaged with the betterment of humanity. Her great series of murals in the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg are a monumental achievement, and her work is collected by the great museums of world.
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Violet Oakley American, 1847–1961 Drawing for Portrait of Italian Coloratura Soprano Amelita Galli-Curci c. 1918 Graphite on paper Promised gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
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Mildred Bunting Miller American, 1892–1964 Woman with a Fan date unknown Pastel on paper
Mildred Bunting Miller was born in Philadelphia and attended Lafayette College, John Hopkins University, and the University of Maryland. She attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1910-15) and studied with Thomas Anshutz, Hugh Breckenridge, Daniel Garber, and Violet
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
Oakley, whose portrait of Amelita Galli-Curci
purchase, 2011
also hangs nearby in this gallery. Admired for her expert draftsmanship, Miller was also a resident artist, instructor and co-director at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art’s summer school in Chester Springs, where she taught alongside Henry McCarter. Later in her life, she moved to California where she was an instructor in the state education program. Miller’s work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Phillips Memorial, National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and many other locations in California and the Midwest.
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Jessie Willcox-Smith American, 1863–1935 The Tea Party c. 1902 Casein and gouache on illustration board, varnished
intimate portrayal of the Butcher family children of Chestnut Hill sitting at a table on a beautiful spring day. An accomplished story-teller, Willcox Smith conveys each child’s distinct personality and psychological approach to the feast of graham crackers, milk, and grapes. Howard Butcher III, seated at left, the oldest male child, seems lost in thought, perhaps dreaming about the future.
Woodmere Art Museum: Partial museum purchase and partial gift of Noel Butcher
Willcox Smith grew up in Philadelphia and
Hanley
attended Friends Central School. She then moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to attend high school with her cousins. There she remained and began teaching kindergarten before discovering her propensity for drawing. She returned to Philadelphia and studied with Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. At the age of thirty one, she started taking illustration classes with Howard Pyle at Drexel Institute of Arts and Sciences (now Drexel University) where she met Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley. The three women became life-long friends and colleagues. Willcox Smith’s abilities as an illustrator are reflected by her many commissions with the Ladies’ Home Journal, Century,
Jessie Willcox Smith was one of the few
Collier’s Weekly, Harper’s Monthly, and Good
women to attain great success in the arts
Housekeeping. She also illustrated several
in the early twentieth century. Although
books including A Child’s Book of Stories,
known primarily as an illustrator, Willcox
Dickens’s Children, The Everyday Fairy Book,
Smith received numerous awards and private
and A Child’s Book of Modern Stories.
portrait commissions. The Tea Party is an 71
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Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer American, 1873–1943 Regal Lilies date unknown Lithograph
Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer’s great-great grandfather was the early American painter, Charles Willson Peale. Peale encouraged his children and grandchildren to pursue the arts, and several of them became successful artists. Hergesheimer was named after her great grandmother, Peale’s
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Patricia
daughter, Sophonisba, who was named after
T. Carbine, 2014
Sofonisba Anguissola, an artist of the Italian Renaissance. Like other artists in her family who took the names of great artists, she was known as Sophonisba. Hergesheimer attended the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design) for two years and then the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) where she studied under William Merritt Chase, Hugh Henry Breckenridge and Cecilia Beaux. At PAFA she was awarded a three-year Cresson scholarship to travel to Europe and between 1904 and 1907 she visited France, Spain, Germany, and Holland. Upon her return to the United States in 1907, she was commissioned to paint a portrait of Bishop Holland N. McTyeire, one of the founders of Vanderbilt University. Hergesheimer traveled to Nashville for the commission and ended up living there for the rest of her life. She painted many portraits of Tennessee politicians and showed her work throughout the South. Her work is currently displayed in the United States Capitol building, the Tennessee State Museum, and
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Benton Spruance American, 1904–1967 Dead Little Bird 1945 Lithograph
With this image of a dead Blue Jay nestled in its tomb of fabric or paper, Benton Spruance demonstrates the classic function of a still life: to remind viewers, through the frozen moment in time, of the brevity of life and the futility of vanity. Here the artist portrays the sensuous beauty of the bird and its feathers
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
in delicate shades of gray.
purchase, 2014
Spruance is celebrated as one of the most important printmakers and teachers of lithography in the twentieth century. He is credited with inventing the “subtractive process” of color lithography in which he used that same stone numerous times in the production of a single print, wiping away one color of ink and adding other colors to build his images in layers. Born in Philadelphia, Spruance attended architectural classes at the University of Pennsylvania. His interest in graphic sketching allowed him to obtain a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied with Daniel Garber. He taught at Beaver College (now Arcadia University), where he also served as chairman of the Fine Arts Department for thirtyfour years. Later he became the director of graphic arts at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). His work has been shown nationally and internationally. He was awarded two Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowships, in 1950 and 1964.
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Don Kaiser American, born 1945
Don Kaiser integrates drawing and
Untitled 2004–2005 Digital photo collage on archival paper
lures, working with ink and graphite on
photography in these works, which he calls digital collages. He first drew the fly fishing paper. Then, having scanned the drawings, he cut and pasted the flies over digitally manipulated photographs of the tarmac at the Philadelphia airport, which he had transformed into blue and orange shapes.
Untitled Too 2004–2005 Digital photo collage on archival paper
The directional markings on the tarmac are faintly visible. The result is a curious play of scale; a gigantic fly sits on a tiny airplane runway. Kaiser graduated from the Temple
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of
University’s Tyler School of Art with a
Josephine Albarelli, 2013
degree in painting and printmaking. In 1970 he was one of the first artists hired by the Philadelphia Print Club (now the Print Center) to create prints for their Prints in Progress program. From 1972 to 1983 he worked as a public artist in Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Department of Urban Outreach (later renamed the Department of Community Programs). In 1972, Kaiser became the first Artist-in-Residence at the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, where he still teaches painting. He has exhibited continuously since 1972, with his work appearing in many solo and group exhibitions.
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Ronald Bateman British, born Wales, 1947 Maxwell Over 1992–1993 Oil on canvas
Maxwell Over is an example of Ronald Bateman’s peculiarly imaginative scenes. In this dream-like landscape, Bateman’s human figures are reduced to the scale of the plums and apples around them. Through meticulously painted details, he creates a surreal narrative. A mood of suspense is cast
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Ann E.
by the apple, hoisted upon a system of twigs,
and Donald W. McPhail, 2013
about to tumble down to the ground. Bateman received his Master of Fine Arts from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. He also taught art at the Tyler School of Art in the 1970s and currently resides in England.
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Charles Jay American, born 1947 Still Life (July 5, 1983, Paris) 1983 Oil on board
Jay’s still lifes burst with a painterly energy that comes from a combination of linear precision, rich color, and rhythmic composition. At the same time, his flowers seem “hyperreal,” as if frozen in place. In Still Life (July 5, 1983, Paris), the tone of the background is a dark, fiery-red that creates a
Promised gift of Philip Jamison
sense of mystery. Jay began his art career by studying and copying works of art in New York museums. In the late 1960s, he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he worked with still life painter Arthur De Costa, who encouraged him to embrace his fascination with seventeenthcentury Dutch flower painters. In the early 1970s he won an art competition sponsored by Raymond Duncan (brother of Isadora Duncan) and his wife, Penelope Sikelianos, and used the prize money to travel to Paris, where he lived and worked for four years. After living in Philadelphia, he returned to Paris in the early 1980s, and painted this still life there. He now lives and works in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
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Eileen Goodman American, born 1937 Peonies 1991 Watercolor on Arches paper
Eileen Goodman often paints still lifes with flowers, fruit, fabrics, and decorative elements. She is revered for her virtuosity with watercolor and her unique ability to achieve intense color, nuanced tonal ranges, and complex textures. Here
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Ann E.
the beautiful peonies grow through an
and Donald W. McPhail, 2013
ornate wrought-iron fence whose organic shapes echo the twisting forms of the flowers and stems. The large scale of the flowers makes the opulent blossoms seem palpable, like pulsing, breathing creatures.
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Violet Oakley American, 1847–1961 Writing the Krisheim News, El Oued 1928 Watercolor on paper
Oakley made this graceful watercolor of her friend George Woodward in 1928, while he, his wife Gertrude, and the artist vacationed together in North Africa. George sits upright in bed in the exotic environment of his hotel room, absorbed in thought as he writes back to the family estate, Krisheim, in Chestnut Hill. Oakley was the second woman ever hired
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the
to teach at the Pennsylvania Academy of
Woodward Family, 2013
the Fine Arts (PAFA), and the first American woman to receive a public mural commission for the Pennsylvania State Capitol. Around the late 1930s, Oakley and her partner Edith Emerson organized a program of art lessons and lectures for amateurs that was held at their home in Mount Airy most of the year, and at Elizabeth Island on Lake George during the summer. Oakley was an advocate for local artists, a civic leader, an internationally known pacifist, and a cofounder of arts organizations including the Plastic Club, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and the Plays and Players Theatre. She was also a driving force in the life of Woodmere Art Museum and a support to Emerson, its director from 1940 through 1978.
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Eileen Goodman American, born 1937 Conversation in a Garden late 1960s Ink on paper
Although known today primarily as
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist,
Goodman (nĂŠe Taber) was born in
a watercolorist, Goodman is also an accomplished painter and draftsman. Here she portrays three friends who are relaxed and enjoying a moment of outdoor conversation.
Atlantic City, New Jersey and attended
2013
the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). There she pursued the illustration arts, earning a BFA in 1958. Goodman has had numerous solo exhibitions, the most recent of which were at Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia. Her work is in the collections of Bryn Mawr College, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art.
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Larry Day American, 1921–1998
social, interactive context. In the pen and ink
Poker Game c. 1970 Graphite on paper
Armand Mednick, Jimmy Lueders, Dennis
drawing, the figures around the gaming table are the artist’s friends: (from left to right) Leon, and David Pease. Born in Philadelphia, Day spent most of his life living and teaching in the area
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Anita
before moving to Takoma Park, Maryland
and Armand Mednick, 2012
in the mid–1980s. Day is best known for the figurative works he made from the 1960s through the 1990s, although he enjoyed success as an abstract painter
Untitled (Poker Game) c. 1970 Pen and ink on paper
in the 1950s. He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting in 1949 from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and a Bachelor of Science degree in education
Promised gift of Ruth Fine
in 1950. Despite his focus on painting, Day’s writings have been published in numerous exhibition catalogues and arts publications. His essay “Notes on Figurative Art,” in The Figure in Recent American Painting (1974), was a significant contribution to the debate
These preparatory drawings for The Poker
about nonfigurative and figurative art and
Game (1970), a large painting in Woodmere’s
a testament to the importance of realist
collection, is evidence of Larry Day’s process;
painting in the 1970s. He was a professor of
he nearly always experimented with his
painting at the Philadelphia College of Art
imagery, making drawings such as these to
(now the University of the Arts) from 1953 to
reconfigure the relationships between figures,
1988, and served for several years as chair of
elements, and architectural context.
the painting department. In addition to his positions at the Philadelphia College of Art,
As a subject, the poker game served as a
he was also a critic in the graduate painting
metaphor for ideas about friendship within
department at the University of Pennsylvania
community, and individuality within a broader
during the 1980s.
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Leon Kelly American, 1901–1982 Group of Four Females 1960 Ink on paper
Leon Kelly is an important figure in American art. Having lived in Paris in the 1920s, he exhibited with the artists of French Surrealism; when he returned to Philadelphia in the 1930s, his work seemed radical and new. He thereby introduced new ideas into the mix of American modernism. In this
Woodmere Art Museum: Given in
drawing of 1960, he depicts four female
memory of Janet Fleisher, 2014
figures. The forms of their bodies overlap, but each seems posed as if participating in a distinct narrative. Kelly was born in Philadelphia. He studied at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts) and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). He was mentored by Earl Horter and Arthur B. Carles. In 1924, he received a Cresson Travelling Fellowship from PAFA that allowed him to travel to Paris, where he lived for six years. His first solo exhibition was held in 1925 at the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. His work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, PAFA, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Wadsworth Athenaeum, among others.
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Thomas Chimes American, 1921–2009
With a career spanning over five decades,
Untitled 1960s Ink on paper
Philadelphia in the 20th century. Chimes
Chimes remains one of the most singular and idiosyncratic figures to emerge from was born in Philadelphia. In 1939, the artist enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied with Daniel Garber and Francis Speight, but his studies
Untitled 1960s Ink on paper
were quickly interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Chimes served in the United States Army Air Force during the war, before returning to his studies in New York in 1946. Using the G.I. Bill, the artist studied
Untitled 1960s Ink on paper
philosophy at Columbia University, and painting and sculpture at the Art Students League, both in New York. As his career progressed he became increasingly hermetic.
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Dmirtri
His work is typically divided into four
and Sheila Chimes, 2011
periods of artistic production: his crucifixion paintings, metal boxes, panel portraits, and white paintings. Chimes’s work is included in the collections of such museums as the Corcoran Museum
Thomas Chimes assembled these three
of Art, Washington, D.C., the Musee National
drawings, uniting them as a trio in a single
d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris,
frame. An additional or otherwise unusual
the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los
human eye is the focal point of each of
Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art, the
the three images. Chimes brought deep
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.,
philosophical thinking to his work as an artist,
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
and here he appears to turn the scrutinizing
Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and
gaze of his depicted subjects out onto the
the Smithsonian American Art Museum,
viewer, a metaphor for the penetrating
Washington, D.C., among others.
intensity of the artist.
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Susan Moore American, born 1953 Almetra’s Daughter 2001 Gouache, ink, graphite, and casein on paper
By painting the back view of the figure from neck to knee, Moore denies the viewer access to her as a recognizable individual. She accentuates the figure’s anonymity by obscuring her head and omitting any identifying features. The artist explains, “One constant in my work
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Ann E.
has been the exploration of the unique
and Donald W. McPhail, 2013
tensions that the body reveals about the self and the assertion of individuality in relation to the quietness of anonymity. Although they often exist as somewhat oppositional or even disparate elements, their intersection can be revealing.” Born in Coco Solo, Panama, Moore lives and works in Philadelphia. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Indiana University in 1977 and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Davis, in 1979. She has received numerous awards, including those from the Franz and Virginia Bader Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, and four from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Moore’s work is in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the New York Public Library, the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Woodmere Art Museum. 95
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Mia Rosenthal American, born 1977 Sample-Sized Box of Rice Krispies 2009 Ink on Mylar
Mia Rosenthal’s drawings engage their viewers with a seeming infinity of twisting and turning forms. Here Rosenthal drew the entire contents of a box of Rice Krispies, laying them out Krispie by Krispie in a sinuous strand of precise oblong forms. Of her work, Rosenthal explains, “The question I am most often asked about my work is ‘How long did
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
this take to make?’ The true answer is ‘a little
purchase, 2012
bit every day.’ Each drawing I make is built from an accumulation of marks. The process of building, adding and layering marks, feels like an authentic way to make a drawing. It is like making a thing using atoms or cells or bits, small pieces gathered together to make a whole. I use drawing as a way to slow down and carefully study the world around me—to understand, process and organize information and turn thoughts into a visual object.” Rosenthal received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from the Parsons School of Design in 1999. She obtained her Master of Fine Arts degree from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in 2008. In 2014 she was the recipient of a Leonore Annenberg Fellowship. She has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States. She is represented by Gallery Joe in Philadelphia. Her work is included in the collection of the Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock; PAFA; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Woodmere Art Museum.
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Samantha Dylan Mitchell American, born 1986 Ball Cycle 1 2013 Etching
Samantha Dylan Mitchell’s etchings, woodcuts, and drawings demonstrate an obsession with detail and an appetite for intricate patterning. Here she takes pain to illustrate every strand in a large tangled mass of yarn or string. The artist explains, “The consistent tension between order and chaos
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
is inherent in anything formed through an
purchase, 2015
organic process. It creates a kind of stability that is ceaselessly in motion, a fabric that weaves the two together into an imperfect pattern that is simultaneously volatile and pensive.” Mitchell graduated from Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH, in 2008. She lived and worked in Illinois, Utah, California, and Oregon before enrolling in the MFA program of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, graduating in 2012. Aside from her work in the studio, Mitchell works as an adjunct professor at Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia and Delaware County Community College, Media, PA. She is also an editor for Title Magazine and an arts educator at the Center for Creative Works, a studio for adults with developmental disabilities. She recently had a solo exhibition, In Grain: Prints by Samantha Mitchell, at the Brodsky Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kelly Writer’s House. She is currently an artist in residence at the Caldera Arts Center in Sisters, OR.
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Alex Queral American, born Cuba 1958
Alex Queral makes portraits by carving
Aviator 2007 Acrylic on paper (carved telephone book)
of a unique individual. Using a knife, Queral
into phonebooks, transforming an object of so many faceless names into an image carefully modulates the depth of his carving and uses acrylic paint to create details. He seals the entire book with acrylic to harden and preserve the sculpture. The artist has explained, “In carving and painting a head
Hope (Barack Obama) 2008 Acrylic on paper (carved telephone book)
from a phonebook directory, I’m celebrating the individual lost in the anonymous list of thousands of names that describe the size of the community. In addition, I like the idea of creating something that is normally discarded
Jack II (Nicholson) 2008 Acrylic on paper (carved telephone book)
every year into an object of longevity.” Queral was born in Havana, Cuba. His family migrated to Mexico and then to Miami, Florida, when he was a young boy. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Robert E.
the University of Washington, Seattle, and
and Frances Coulborn Kohler, 2014
a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania. His works have been exhibited in Canada, England, Mexico, and throughout the United States.
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Alex Queral American, born Cuba 1958 Self Portrait II 2014 Digital print on canvas
Here the artist has photographed and digitally reproduced the hand-carved sculptural version of his self-portrait.
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Robert E. and Frances Coulborn Kohler, 2014
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Tom Palmore American, born 1945 Untitled (Gorilla in Upholstered Chair) date unknown LIthograph
For more than thirty five years, Tom Palmore has painted portraits of animals. His highly detailed portraits offer a unique and often comical juxtaposition of technical virtuosity and imaginative context. When asked about his paintings Palmore explains, “They’re about other earthlings that we share this planet with…and about our relationship
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Carl L.
with them.” Palmore’s whimsical portraits
Steele, 2014
anthropomorphize many animals in humorous ways like this depiction of a gorilla who rests in a rather traditional wingedbacked chair. Born in Oklahoma in 1945, Palmore received his degree from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1969. His work is included in numerous private and public collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Denver Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the National Museum of Wildlife Art, among others.
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Catherine M. Kuch Balcony gallery Woodmere Art Museum 106
Catherine M. Kuch Gallery
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Adolphe Borie American, 1877–1934 In the Garden date unknown Oil on canvas
Adolphe Borie was a significant figure in the movement of American Impressionism. His ease with brilliant color and bravura brushwork is abundantly evident in this painting of a woman seated in a garden. Her downcast eyes and contemplative expression suggest a moment of thoughtful repose that
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
is counterbalanced by the dynamic energy of
purchase, 2012
the verdant background. Bright sunlight falls on her hat, which casts a cool shadow on her
Conservation on this work was made
face.
possible in part by the generous
Borie was born into a prosperous, socially
contribution from Charles Ingersoll
prominent Philadelphia family. His father, Adolph Edward Borie, a financier and noted patron of the arts, was appointed secretary of the United States Navy by President Grant in 1869. The artist attended the University of Pennsylvania for one year, but left to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied under William Merritt Chase and Thomas Anshutz from 1896 to 1899. Borie was enrolled in the Royal Academy in Munich from 1900–1903 and lived abroad until 1915, taking occasional trips to Paris and Vienna and studying the work of the French Impressionists. Borie returned to New York in 1915 where, during World War I, he worked to design camouflage for ships. Following the war he returned to Philadelphia where he lived for the rest of his life. A well-known figure in the art world, Borie’s circle of friends included diverse men and women such as Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, George Luks, Rockwell Kent, and Charles Demuth. 109
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Edith Neff American, 1943–1995 Self-Portrait 1971 Oil on canvas
I’ve always been a Philadelphia artist. These are the streets I grew up in, the people I knew, my own family. I am interested in exploring the ordinary and the familiar.
—Edith Neff
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Barbara
In this self-portrait, Neff captures the
Torpie and Dr. Richard Torpie, 2013
intimacy of a familiar space. She is seated in her studio, wearing underwear and flipflops. Brush in hand, she stares outward with a purposeful expression, as if studying the model or still-life subject of a work that is currently in progress. The figure’s implicating gaze is a characteristic feature of Neff’s works, and here it positions us, the viewer of the painting, as the subject of the artist’s attention. We are her subject, as much as she is ours. Neff was born in Philadelphia. She received her BFA in Painting from the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). In 1978, she joined the faculty at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) where she taught figure painting and drawing until the time of her death. She received national acclaim for her paintings. Her work is in many public and corporate collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, PAFA, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Minnesota Museum of Art.
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Christopher Smith American, born 1958 Sankofa Kore 2011 Bronze
classical Greek pose of the kouros offers a
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist
The sculpture was a collaboration of sorts
balance between iconic monumentality and dynamic motion. Here, the figure is walking, captured in that brief moment between steps, shifting weight from one foot to the other.
between Smith and his model, Kelicia Pitts,
and Stephen Robin, 2015
who has fashioned herself as a muse for numerous artists. After meeting at Fleisher
Photograph by Joe Painter
Art Memorial, Smith asked Pitts to model for a life drawing group that meets at his studio. Upon seeing Smith’s work, she asked if he would create a sculpture of her. She posed for free and in turn Smith gave her the original plaster cast. By titling this work, Sankofa Kore, Smith refers to the Adinkra Sankofa symbol of the Akan people of Ghana. Its literal translation is “return and get it,” and is usually interpreted as: take from the past what is good and bring it into the present. Smith was born in Detroit and currently lives and works in Philadelphia. His work is in private and public collections and has been exhibited extensively in the United Kingdom
Christopher Smith’s almost life-size figure is
and North America, including the Park
directly inspired by the sculpture of ancient
Avenue Atrium in New York and Brookgreen
Greece, and specifically by the kouros, or
Gardens, South Carolina. He has taught at
nude male figurative sculpture. Smith was
the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial and was
drawn to the sensual corporeality of Greek
a recipient of the Frank Gasparro Memorial
sculpture and to the manner in which the
Fellowship at Fleisher. 113
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Arthur B. Carles American, 1882–1952 Portrait of Mrs. Carles and Sara c. 1907 Oil on canvas
in the United States Portrait of Mrs. Carles and Sara is an early work. At the age of twenty-five, he paints his mother instructing his sister in the art of sewing. Their eyes gaze intently at the work in hand and they are wrapped in a
Promised gift of Philip Jamison
warm embrace. Carles was a great colorist, and the rich earth tones and elegance of his composition betray a dedication to teachers like Thomas Anschutz and Cecilia Beaux at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). Carles was born in Philadelphia and attended Central Manual High School before enrolling at PAFA in 1900. He taught there from 1917 through 1925, and was fired for throwing a plaster cast down the elevator shaft, a dramatic gesture intended to shake up the institution’s devotion to classical training. Carles continued to teach privately and many of his students, including Jane Piper, Morris Blackburn, Quita Brodhead, Jessie Drew-Bear, Mary G. L. Hood, Agnes Hood Miller, Moy Glidden, Vera White, Faye Swengel Badura, Betty Hubbard, and Leon Kelly would become renowned artists of the modernist era. Their work is well represented in Woodmere’s collection. Carles’s work is in the collections of numerous national and
Arthur B. Carles is considered one of the
international museums. His final home was
great American painters of the 20th century,
a yellow stucco house on East Evergreen
an artist who was deeply influential in.
Avenue in Chestnut Hill.
developing a modernist approach to painting 115
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Morris Blackburn American, 1902–1979 Seated Nude 1937 Oil on canvas
Morris Blackburn is best known for the abstract paintings he made in the 1940s and 50s. However, he worked as a figurative artist early in his career, developing a rich palette of earth tones. Absorbed in thoughts, the woman’s pose in Seated Nude, is suggestive, but Blackburn imbues her with a toughness
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
and strength of character that makes her
purchase, 2013
more than a passive object of beauty. Born in Philadelphia, Blackburn began his art education at age twenty at the Graphic Sketch Club (now the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial) and the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts). Later, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), he studied painting with Henry McCarter, drawing with Daniel Garber, and sketching with Arthur B. Carles, who became his friend and mentor. Blackburn was also a printmaker, muralist, and pioneer in the development of silkscreen printing in the early 1940s. He was a member of the faculty at the Philadelphia Museum School and PAFA.
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Hugh Henry Breckenridge American, 1870–1937 Nude Study 1915 Oil on canvas
Nude Study, one of Hugh Henry Breckenridge’s early paintings, demonstrates a traditional approach to the figure enriched by an earthy palette. The stark whiteness of her torso contrasts with the warmer tones in her face, hair, and orange background. She looks down and away from the viewer,
Promised gift of Dorothy J. del Bueno
absorbed in her privacy. Breckenridge’s bold experimentation with pure color and enthusiasm for French modern art made him one of the most daring instructors at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), where he taught for forty-three years. Breckenridge began his own studies at PAFA in 1887 and received a Cresson Travel Scholarship. After spending a year in Paris, he returned to Philadelphia and taught at Springside School for Girls (now Springside Chestnut Hill Academy) before joining the faculty at his alma mater. In the summer of 1920, he opened the Breckenridge School of Art in Massachusetts, which flourished as a haven for many notable artists.
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Walter Stuempfig American, 1914–1970 Fisherfolk Mending Nets date unknown Oil on canvas
Walter Stuempfig created Fisherfolk Mending Nets when he was a young artist working in Paris in the 1930s. Three figures prominently stand in the foreground, working together in the cold to detangle a net. A diagonal sweep of nets cover the beach and lead us to the lone figure standing in the background,
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
isolated and close to the water’s edge. The
purchase, 2013
white hat of the old woman in tattered clothing contrasts with the muted browns and grays that saturate the scene, bringing attention to the three figures. The expression “mending their nets” is found in the Book of Matthew. To mend nets requires hours of repairing and untangling to prepare for a day of successful fishing, the same qualities needed in preparation for spiritual service. Despite their poverty and harsh conditions, Stuempfig’s gentle “fisherfolk” convey a sense of nobility in their unrelenting tasks and labor.
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Walter Stuempfig American, 1914–1970 Wood’s Quarry date unknown Oil on canvas
Walter Stuempfig creates a palpable tension with his depiction of a group of young men interacting in a quarry. Why are they there and what are they doing? The provocative poses and suggestion of homoerotic energy is made palpable in an odd way by the barechested figure at right, whose shoulders
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
and head are cropped by the edge of the
purchase with generous funding
painting. The dense arrangement of figures
provided in part by The Barra Art
is physically animated and psychologically haunting. A sense of discomfort evokes
Acquisition Fund, 2013
popular filmic narratives of the time such as “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955), or even “West Side Story” (1961). The painting was acquired by Woodmere at auction, and its previous owner was Malcolm Forbes. Walter Stuempfig was born in Germantown, Philadelphia. He began his studies at the University of Pennsylvania, studying architecture and then transferred to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), to study painting. His instructors included Henry McCarter, Daniel Garber and Francis Speight. From 1948–1970 he was an influential teacher at PAFA where he exhibited regularly. His paintings sold steadily and can be found in many public and private collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Modern Art; the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and PAFA.
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Martha Mayer Erlebacher American, 1937–2013 The Death of Orpheus 1997 Oil on canvas
depicted two stages of his death. At the center of the composition Orpheus is attacked by the enraged women who wield large sticks. The women cut off his head and throw it into the river Hebros. At the far left the head of Orpheus floats on the river and is surrounded by an ethereal glow.
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Born in 1937 in Jersey City, New Jersey,
Erlebacher Family, 2014
Erlebacher earned her BA in industrial With this large-scale, ambitious painting,
design and her MFA at the Pratt Institute
Erlebacher interprets a portion of the myth of
in Brooklyn. She and her husband, sculptor
Orpheus, a parable of jealousy, violence, and
Walter Erlebacher, taught at Pratt until
social injustice. Orpheus is most commonly
1966, at which time the couple relocated to
associated with the tragic love story told by
Philadelphia, each of them having accepted
Ovid in his epic poem, The Metamorphoses,
a teaching position at the Philadelphia
first published in 8 CE. In Ovid’s tale, the
College of Art (now the University of the
bard Orpheus and the nymph Eurydice are to
Arts). Martha taught at the University of the
marry, but on their wedding day, a venomous
Arts until 1993, although by that time she
snake kills Eurydice. The gods take pity on
had already joined the faculty of the New
the grieving Orpheus and let him travel to the
York Academy of Art, a school dedicated to
underworld to bring her back to the world of
classical training in the figurative arts. There
the living—on the condition that he not look
she served in leadership positions through
at her until they have escaped. Near the end
2006, contributing substantially to the
of their journey, Orpheus glances backwards,
development of the academic curriculum.
losing Eurydice again as she is pulled back to
Her work has been exhibited nationally
the underworld.
and internationally and is included in the collections of many museums, including
Erlebacher was attracted to the subsequent
Woodmere Art Museum, the Philadelphia
part of the Orpheus myth. Grief stricken by
Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of
the loss of his beloved, Orpheus renounces
the Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, the
women. Eventually Orpheus is killed by the
Yale University Art Gallery, the Fogg Museum
women of Thrace, who are angered by the
at Harvard University, the Cleveland Museum
rejection of their love. Here Erlebacher has
of Art, and many others. 125
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Bo Bartlett American, born 1955 Madre del Nene 1990 Oil on linen
industrial landscape with oil tanks and an unfinished highway create an environment that indicates the contemporary world where industrial reality and nature coexist in a discomfiting manner. On the right a man with his back to us points his finger like a gun at the figures on the left.
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
There, a woman supports a lifeless, seminude
purchase, 2011
woman whose pose and stigmata-like wounds suggest the deposition of Christ (the moment when Christ was removed from the cross). A kneeling man delicately holds the shin of this Christ-like figure. The metal pole suggests the base of a cross. At right, a small boy stares accusingly outward, implicating the viewer in the violence of the scene. Bartlett’s imagery suggests an unsettling, desolate world populated by victims, compassionate individuals, and perpetrators. Bartlett studied in Italy with Ben F. Long IV and then attended the University of the Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), where he earned a Certificate of Fine Art. He studied with Nelson Shanks at PAFA and took anatomical studies at
Bartlett’s Madre del Nene is grand and
the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic
monumental, like the historical paintings
Medicine. He later studied filmmaking at
by the old masters of Western art. It also
New York University. Bartlett has won
confronts us with a disturbing narrative.
numerous awards, including the Ursinus
Five figures pose dramatically in a deserted,
College Distinguished Artist Award (2005);
industrial landscape. Their life-size scale.
several awards for his documentary on
accentuates the scene’s realism. Scattered
Andrew Wyeth, Snow Hill (1996); and a Pew
objects—a wheel, a discarded sofa—and the
Fellowship in the Arts (1994). 127
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Frank Galuszka American, born 1947 Laundry 1986 Oil on linen
spout of the sink is a strong phallic form that echoes the shapes of the girl’s crouching back. The girl is crouching down, as if searching but also turning away into the corner occupied by the chair. I’ve always interpreted this painting as being about the loss of innocence, the loss of youth, the loss
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist,
of the purity.
2012
GALUSZKA: My approach to painting, and maybe the approach of some of these other artists, is to create a range of potential interpretations, potential good interpretations and include some interpretations that would be wrong. So it’s not as if there is one specific interpretation nor is it that one interpretation is right. Given the evidence of the painting
This painting was the subject of an exchange
and given my unconscious, I think your
between William Valerio, The Patricia Van
interpretation is a great one, Bill. I have
Burgh Allison Director and CEO and artist
always agreed with Dalí, who said “the fact
Frank Galuszka that appears earlier in this
that I don’t know what my paintings mean
catalogue.
when I’m painting them doesn’t mean that they have no meaning.”
GALUSZKA: […] This particular painting is inspired by the parable of the lost drachma,
Frank Galuszka studied at Syracuse
which is a story about a woman looking
University, received his M.F.A from Tyler
for a coin. She is a stand-in for Jesus Christ
School of Art at Temple University, and was
who searches out and finds lost souls. In this
a Fulbright Scholar in Romania. His work has
case, however, the thing that’s lost is nothing
been shown in solo and group exhibitions
specific like a drachma but some unspecified
at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
thing, a non-concrete unspecified thing.
Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Woodmere, among others. From 1988 to
VALERIO: You’ve told me about the lost
1992, Galuszka served on the Philadelphia
drachma, but I’ve always interpreted the
Art Commission. He currently teaches at the
painting in a different direction. The black
University of California, Santa Cruz. 129
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Frank Bender American, 1941–2011 Grieving Boy 1980s Plaster
Frank Bender’s sculpture, Grieving Boy, is a plaster model for a bronze, three-figure public monument to fallen police officers that was commissioned by and created for Camden, New Jersey. A boy sadly looks down at the hat of his father, an officer killed in the line of duty. In the completed monument, the
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist,
father appears as a figure standing behind
2011
the boy. Bender preserved this plaster model as a unique work of art because he liked the way the mysterious paternal hand alights protectively on the shoulder of the boy. Bender was trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts as a figurative sculptor in the classical tradition. He became a forensic sculptor, a field that he virtually invented, developing an ability to reconstruct in sculpture the facial appearances of crime victims from skulls or decomposed human remains. He first worked with the Philadelphia Police Department, and he went on to build a notable career with the FBI, America’s Most Wanted, Scotland Yard, and the governments of Mexico and Egypt. His work has led to the identification of numerous murder victims and to the apprehension of fugitives from justice.
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Sidney Goodman American, 1936–2013 Campaign Pep Rally 1959 Pastel on paper
Sidney Goodman participated in a return to figuration that occurred in American and European art in the 1960s. His work draws from observation, memories, imagination, photography, and current events. Early in his career, his work made direct reference to the Holocaust, and these large works on
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
paper, with figures hanging upside down, or
purchase, 2013
possibly dead, are monumental indictments of the violence that humanity inflicts on itself in the modern world. As in these works, Goodman often depicts a modern-day crowd observing spectacles of destruction. Goodman studied at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts), where his teachers included Jacob Landau, Morris Berd, and Larry Day. As a student he was drawn to the work of Bonnard and Van Gogh and the German Expressionists. Not long after his graduation he began to teach at the Philadelphia College of Art. Later he taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 1964, at the age of twentyseven, Time magazine touted him as “one of the most respected and sought-after of the new figure painters.” Over the course of his career, Goodman received a number of awards, including a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, the Hazlett Memorial Award for Excellence in the Arts, and an honorary doctorate from Lyme Academy College of Fine Art. His work is included in numerous public and private collections.
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Sidney Goodman American, 1936–2013 Disbeliving Onlookers 1960 Pastel on paper Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013
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Doug Martenson American, born 1960 Status Quo 1992 Oil on linen
Douglas Martenson was dissatisfied with a painting he made; to reuse the canvas, he turned it upside down and painted the image of a dog he had been studying (the pet of a neighbor). Hints of the architectural forms of the former cityscape can be discerned in the dark structure on which the dog stands.
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Douglas
The dog stares out, capturing the viewer in
and Camille Martenson, 2015
his gaze. He is a symbolic entity, perched mysteriously against a green landscape that, despite the foliage at right, seems barren. The animal is alone, fending for himself, perhaps abandoned. Martenson obtained his certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and studied at the Vermont Studio Center. He has lived in the Philadelphia area since 1978 and exhibits regularly. He is the recipient of several grants and awards, including Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, Individual Creative Opportunity stipends from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts grant, and the Philadelphia Mayor’s Award from PAFA. Since 2010 Martenson has served as Chair of the PAFA Faculty Committee. He is also a lecturer in figure drawing at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Edith Neff American, 1943–1995 Swimming Pool at Hunting Park 1977 Oil on canvas
GALUSZKA: […] one of the greatest social commentaries in this show, [is] Edie Neff’s Swimming Pool at Hunting Park (1977). She makes a statement about equality and integration without propaganda and heavy-handedness.
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Drs.
VALERIO: Simply because it’s 1977 and
Herbert and Faith Cohen, 2014
it’s an integrated pool. She depicts children who are completely innocent. GALUSZKA: […] It’s simply showing a moment in time in this place and the relationships that are happening at that moment. With Swimming Pool at Hunting Park, Neff arrests the frenetic action of a public swimming pool. Three children climb onto the deck as water splashes over the edge of the pool. A child in the pool sticks out her tongue, as if she just swallowed a gulp of water. Characters move toward the foreground and to the background, and a boy leans over preparing to dive into the water. Only the
Swimming Pool at Hunting Park was the
young girl sitting on the bench looks out
subject of an exchange between artist
and engages the viewer. Typical of Neff’s
Frank Galuszka and William Valerio,
work, most of the figures are absorbed in
Woodmere’s Patricia Van Burgh Allison
the action of the scene or in their internal
Director and CEO, that appears earlier in
thoughts.
the catalogue. 139
140
Sarah McEneaney American, born Germany 1955 Rio Grande Hot Springs 2009 Egg tempera on linen
herself and her companions in what were giant, communal bathtubs fed by the hot springs that had been built by the National Park Service in Texas in the 1920s and 1930s. McEneaney’s representational style expresses her love for her friends, her pets, and painting. Her work is a celebration of life that
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist,
often contains a personal narrative about her
2014
travels and life experiences. McEneaney works primarily in egg tempera, which allows her to achieve the brilliant color and detailed brushwork that can be seen in this painting. She mixes her paint from egg yolk and powdered pigment, while making her gesso from powdered limestone and rabbit-skin glue. McEneaney attended the University of the Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). Her work is in many public and private collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; PAFA; Woodmere Art Museum; the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY; and the Rhode Island School of Design. McEneaney has received numerous awards, including an Anonymous Was a Woman Award, a Joan Mitchell Foundation
At the end of her artist residency at the
grant, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts grant,
Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, Sarah
and residencies at the Joan Mitchell Center,
McEneaney and two friends visited Big Bend
the Chinati Foundation, the Fundación
National Park, a sprawling area along the Rio
Valparaíso, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo.
Grande River between Texas and Mexico.
McEneaney is represented by the Tibor de
After a day of hiking they visited the ruins of
Nagy Gallery, New York and Locks Gallery,
hot springs. Here McEneaney portrays
Philadelphia.
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142
Joan Wadleigh Curran American, born 1950 Ranunculas 2013 Gouache on paper
Joan Curran uses subtle shades of lavender and green in her remarkable depiction of a tangle of collapsed flowers and stems. The complicated mass fills the dark space and suggests life in its declining moments. Curran received a Bachelor of Arts in studio art from Skidmore College in Saratoga
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
Springs, New York, and an MFA from Yale
purchase, 2014
University. She has held faculty positions at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, Moore College of Art and Design, and Drexel University, among others, and currently teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. She has received prestigious awards including the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency. Since 1975, she has had fourteen solo exhibitions.
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Mitzi Melnicoff American, 1922–1972 Poinsettia 1972 Gouache over graphite on paper
This is the last painting made by the great Philadelphia colorist painter Mitzi Melnicoff, who died of breast cancer in 1972 at the age of 50. Poinsettia was on her easel at the time of her death. A cathartic, poignant image, the once-vibrant poinsettias have faded somewhat. The plant must have been a
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Dr.
decoration in her home during the Christmas
Lorraine Kligman, 2014
of 1971. It sits in front of a fragmented, perhaps torn black curtain, and we glimpse a mysterious blue space in the distance. Melnicoff graduated from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. After working several years as an illustrator, in 1962 she began teaching drawing, painting, and illustration at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). In 1968, she was awarded the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ Mary Smith Prize for a distinguished female painter. She exhibited at Woodmere in 1961 in an exhibition titled Young Artists of Philadelphia. Shortly before she died, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts organized an exhibition, Return to the Figure, in which Melnicoff’s paintings were hung alongside those by Romare Bearden, Sidney Goodman, Alex Katz, and Philip Pearlstein.
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Paul Gorka American, born 1931 Fractured Glass with Reflection date unknown Oil on paper
Meticulously painted and dramatically set against a dark background, Paul Gorka’s Fractured Glass with Reflection, confronts the viewer with its grand scale. A stark light permeates the scene and bounces off a tall glass vessel that contains thorny stems and plush, green leaves. A mirror image is
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Morton L.
reflected in the lower portion of the painting
Smith, Chestnut Hill, PA, 2011
in a strong vertical symmetry. We sense a provocative relationship between “the real” and the illusion of the reflection. Gorka was born in Nanticoke, PA. After serving for three years in Army intelligence, he received his BFA from the University of Pennsylvania and went on to attend graduate school at the University of Munich and New York University. He studied music and attended business school, and finally spent three years at the Art Students’ League in New York. He then studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he received a Cresson Traveling Scholarship, among other awards. His work is in several collections, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield, MA, and Woodmere Art Museum.
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Ben Kamihira American, 1925–2004 Still Life with Plaster Masks date unknown Oil on canvas
Ben Kamihira’s still life is a dramatic tableau of highly charged relationships between objects of disparate textures and characteristics. The carefully rendered cabbage, the onions shedding their skins, and the beautiful seashell offer erotic resonances. The plaster casts may refer back to the
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
artist’s days as a student at the Pennsylvania
purchase, 2013
Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), where he was trained to draw from casts of antique sculptures. Kamihira shows his virtuosity, juxtaposing different kinds of glass—a Coke bottle, carafe, and glass pitcher—with a copper samovar. Kamihira was born in Yakima, Washington. He and his parents were sent to a Japanese internment camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. From 1944 to 1946, he served in the Army’s Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy. Using the G.I. Bill, he studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh from 1946 to 1948 and at PAFA from 1948 to 1952. Kamihira became a professor at PAFA and taught generations of artists. His work is in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida, the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Oklahoma Art Museum.
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Charles Edward Harrigan American, born 1981 Artifact of Aesthetic Obsolescence (Cigarette Lighter) 2012 Oil on panel
For me, it’s in the play of symbols and ideas in the subject matter. —Charles Edward Harrigan
Charles Edward Harrigan purchased the cigarette lighter depicted here in an antique shop. By rendering the lighter at its actual size, he makes apparent the strangeness
Promised Gift from a Private Collector
of the object as a relic of the past. He also shows off his skill at portraying the reflective surface of the smooth metal. Harrigan graduated from the Delaware College of Art and Design in 2008 and from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2012. His work was recently included in group exhibitions at the Delaware Art Museum and the Woodmere Art Museum.
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152
Penelope Harris American, born 1938 Stripes 2007 Graphite on paper
VALERIO: […] Harris was a student of [Ben] Kamihira’s at PAFA. Both this and Kamihira’s works are very much about relationships between ordinary objects that take on an erotic dimension. The squashes are sensual, the seashell [in Kamihira’s painting] is very sensuous and suggest body parts, [Harris’s]
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Joseph
pumpkins and squashes are phallic forms
and Pamela Yohlin, 2014
and breast-like forms that tease each other, just touching or almost touching, or touching through their shadows. GALUSZKA: Works are usually criticized when the forms touch. It’s called “kissing.” Teachers will tell you when you are learning to draw that if the forms are kissing you’ve got to overlap them or separate them. VALERIO: I know Penny well enough to describe that if somebody said, “it’s discouraged to allow forms to kiss like that” she would say “okay, I’m going to make an image in which all the forms kiss and it’s going to work as an image.” She would take the challenge. Born in New York City, Harris is the daughter of realist painters Audrey Buller and Lloyd Parsons. Harris moved to Chestnut Hill in 1969 and it was not until then that she began
Penelope Harris’s drawing was the subject of
to paint, enrolling in Woodmere’s art classes.
an exchange between artist Frank Galuszka
Encouraged by her success, she entered
and Woodmere’s Patricia Van Burgh Allison
a certificate program at the Pennsylvania
Director and CEO William Valerio from earlier
Academy of the Fine Arts in 1974, where she
in the catalogue
studied under Kamihira and Jimmy Lueders. 153
154
Paul Kane American, born 1939 T.V. (Black and White #4) 1974 Acrylic on canvas
Throughout Paul Kane’s forty-year career, he has examined the flatness of the picture plane, applying his tromp l’oeil talent to depictions of fabrics, sheets, and large expanses of crumpled paper. T.V. (Black and White #4) eschews any adherence to the idea that a painting is a window onto a three-
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Bill and
dimensional space. The artist creates the
Acey Wolgin, 2012
effect of light as it falls across fabrics taped to the wall, using a variety of warm and cool colors to create subtlety and drama. In 1961 Kane studied at the Atelier D’hôtel, Paris. He relocated to Philadelphia after his time abroad and received his Certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. His work is in the collection of the Thomas W. Evans Museum at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Delaware, and the Saatchi Collection, London. He has taught at Cheltenham Arts Center for almost twenty years. He currently lives and works in South Philadelphia.
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Emily Brown American, born 1943 Handstand 2011 Ink wash, acrylic, lithograph, charcoal, graphite, wallpaper, and postcard on paper
has been to use only preexisting material saved for its intrinsic interest, often for years. The potent meanings held by specific parts quickly fade as contexts change.” Among the elements in this collage, a series of figures silhouetted in white perform handstands. The sequence of figures in movement is directly inspired by the stop-motion photographic experiments
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum
of Eadweard Muybridge. In the 1880s he
purchase, 2014
photographed figures and animals in motion, including the successive stages of a man walking in the handstand position. Brown brings together images that evoke memory and nostalgia, home and nature. In 2014 Brown had a solo exhibition of her work, INLAND, Emily Brown, at Icon Contemporary Art in Brunswick, Maine. Her work has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions. In 2009 she was the recipient of an artist residency at La Napoule Foundation in Cote d’Azur, France. She was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2000 and a Visual Arts Grant from the Independence Foundation, Philadelphia, in 2007. Her work is included in the collections of CIGNA Corporation; Philadelphia, Bryn Mawr College Library; the James A. Michener
Emily Brown explains, “I’ve been putting old
Art Museum; Johns Hopkins Hospital; the
incomplete drawings, paintings and prints
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the
to new use, rearranging disparate parts and
Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Princeton
adding some beloved ephemera. My rule
University Art Museum; among others.
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Walter Erlebacher American, born Germany 1933– 1991 Sistine Chapel c. late 1960s Lead alloy, alluminum-filled urethane resin
In the mid-1960s, when the German-born sculptor Walter Erlebacher sought to understand the representation of human anatomy anew, he turned to Michelangelo. Working with photographic reproductions, he transformed the two-dimensional, painted ignudi into a series of sculptures on an intimate scale. Of the twenty ignudi depicted on the Sistine ceiling, one of them is lost, due to damage. Erlebacher sculpted eighteen
(at left) Ignudo 1 Aluminum filled urethane resin
of the nineteen existing figures. It remains unknown why one figure was not sculpted. The artist’s wife and fellow artist, Martha Mayer Erlebacher (whose painting is also on
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Martha
view in this gallery), explained that when her
Mayer Erlebacher, 2013
husband wanted to learn about the human form he knew that, “Michelangelo was the
Collection of Jonah Erlebacher
best anatomist, period, end of story—he was.” Erlebacher studied at Pratt Institute in the late 1950s, where he earned a master’s degree in industrial design. While at Pratt he became interested in metal sculpture, and the bulk of his work is figurative. Erlebacher was an influential and much-loved professor
Within the great arrangement of biblical
at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the
tableaus and figures that Michelangelo
University of the Arts). He taught that the
painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
human figure must be conceived relative to
in Rome are a series of twenty ignudi. These
its interaction with the forces of gravity and
nude male figures are seated on plinths
with the objects with which it is in contact.
and they bear garlands of oak leaves and
In Philadelphia, he is known for his public
acorns. Some art historians have argued that
art, including a life-size sculpture of the boy
the ignudi are meant to function as angelic
Christ at the Cathedral of Philadelphia on the
figures that act as intermediaries between
Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
humanity and God. 159
WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION ANASTASIA ALEXANDRIN
RONALD BATEMAN
City Dweller, 1963
American, born Ukraine 1985
British, born Wales 1947
Oil on canvas, 24 x 20 in.
Boy, 2007
Maxwell Over, 1992–1993
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2012
Acrylic on panel, 6 x 6 in.
Oil on canvas, 28 x 40 in.
Promised gift of Peter Paone
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Ann E. and Donald W. McPhail, 2013
ROGER ANLIKER
American, 1924–2013 Sun Alone, 1948
Immigrants, date unknown Oil on canvas, 9 x 19 in. Promised gift of Dorothy J. del Bueno
FRANK BENDER
American, 1941–2011
ADOLPHE BORIE
American, 1877–1934
Gouache on board, 21 x 27 in.
Grieving Boy, 1980s
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Dale and Lisa Roberts, 2015
Plaster, 60 x 20 x 15 in.
In the Garden, date unknown
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2011
Oil on canvas, 29 3/4 x 22 in.
ETHEL V. ASHTON
GEORGE BIDDLE
American, 1896–1975
American, 1885–1973
Cotton Candy, 1952
Untitled (Three Figures with Gravestone), 1930
Oil on canvas on board, 24 x 17 3/4 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Elaine D. and Bruce M. Ashton, 2013
American, born 1955 Madre del Nene, 1990 Oil on linen, 70 x 94 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2011
HUGH HENRY BRECKENRIDGE
American, 1870–1937
Lithograph, 19 x 13 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Jim’s of Lambertville, 2014 MORRIS BLACKBURN
BO BARTLETT
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2012
American, 1902–1979 Seated Nude, 1937 Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013 JULIUS BLOCH
American, 1888–1966 160
Nude Study, 1915 Oil on canvas, 24 x 25 in. Promised gift of Dorothy J. del Bueno EMILY BROWN
American, born 1943 Handstand, 2011 Ink wash, acrylic, lithograph, charcoal, graphite, wallpaper, and postcard on paper, 43 x 37 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2014
ARTHUR B. CARLES
of Dmitri and Sheila Chimes, 2011
American, 1882–1952 Portrait of Mrs. Carles and Sara, c. 1907 Oil on canvas, 29 7/8 x 24 5/8 in. Promised gift of Philip Jamison
American, 1844–1926
Ranunculas, 2013 Gouache on paper, 15 x 15 in.
American, 1921–1998
Sistine Chapel, c. late 1960s 2 lead alloy, varying dimensions, each approx. 6 in. Collection of Jonah Erlebacher
Poker Game, c. 1970
FRANK GALUSZKA
Graphite on paper, 19 1/4 x 25 in.
American, born 1947
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Anita and Armand Mednick, 2012
Laundry, 1986
LARRY DAY
Bill in Coat and Cap, c. 1889 Drypoint on laid paper, 6 x5
American, born 1950
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2014
MARY CASSATT
1/ 8
JOAN WADLEIGH CURRAN
3/ 4
in.
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2012 MELVIN A. CHAPPELL
Sistine Chapel, c. late 1960s 8 lead alloy; 8 aluminumfilled urethane resin, varying dimensions, each approx. 6 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Martha Mayer Erlebacher, 2013
American, born 1954 The Factory, 2012
Untitled (Poker Game), c. 1970
Digital inkjet print, 11 1/4 x 17 in.
Pen and ink on paper, 13 1/2 x 17 in.
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2014
Promised gift of Ruth Fine
Oil on linen, 68 x 70 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2012 ALBERT GOLD
American, 1916–2006 Siesta, c. 1939–41 Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in.
THOMAS CHIMES
MARTHA MAYER ERLEBACHER
American, 1921–2009
American, 1937–2013
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Aurora Gold, 2014
Untitled, 1960s
The Death of Orpheus, 1997
EILEEN GOODMAN
Ink on paper, 9 1/4 x 7 in.
Oil on canvas, 72 x 108 in.
American, born 1937
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Erlebacher Family, 2014
Conversation in a Garden, late 1960s
Untitled, 1960s Ink on paper, 5
5/ 8
x3
1/ 4
in.
Untitled, 1960s Ink on paper, 4 1/2 x 4 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift
Ink on paper, 8 x 10 3/4 in. WALTER ERLEBACHER
American, born Germany 1933–1991
161
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Eileen Goodman, 2013
EILEEN GOODMAN
Goes!), 1982
Clown Head, date unknown
American, born 1937
Mixed printmaking techniques including lithography, 16 1/2 x 22 in.
Lithograph, 9 1/4 x 9 1/8 in.
Peonies, 1991 Watercolor on Arches paper, 40 x 60 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Ann E. and Donald W. McPhail, 2013
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013
EARL HORTER CHARLES EDWARD HARRIGAN
American, born 1981 SIDNEY GOODMAN
American, 1936–2013 Campaign Pep Rally, 1959 Pastel on paper, 68 3/4 x 40 1/4 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013 Disbelieving Onlookers, 1960
Artifact of Aesthetic Obsolescence (Cigarette Lighter), 2012 Oil on panel, 4 x 5 in. Promised gift from a Private Collector PENELOPE HARRIS
American, born 1938
Pastel on paper, 40 1/8 x 79 in.
Stripes, 2007
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013
Graphite on paper, 36 1/2 x 52 in.
PAUL GORKA
American, born 1931 Fractured Glass with Reflection, date unknown Oil on canvas, 72 x 40 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Morton L. Smith, Chestnut Hill, PA, 2011 ANTHONY-PETR GORNY
American, born 1950 Paperface (Broken Halos Oh I Know Where That Door
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Peter Paone and Alma Alabilikian, 2015
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Joseph and Pamela Yohlin, 2014 ELLA SOPHONISBA HERGESHEIMER
American, 1873–1943 Regal Lillies, date unknown Lithograph, ed. 25/54, 17 x 11 3/8 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Patricia T. Carbine, 2014 JOSEPH HIRSCH
American, 1910–1981
162
American, 1880–1940 Naples Tenements, date unknown Etching, 7 3/4 x 11 1/8 in. Naples, 1914 Watercolor and graphite on paper, 10 1/2 x 9 3/4 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Rosyln Silverman Hahn, 2013 THOMAS HOVENDEN
American, 1840–1995 The Last Moments of John Brown, c. 1882–84 Pen and ink, 14 1/2 x 18 1/2 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013 PHILIP JAMISON
American, born 1925 John Chadd’s House, c. 1958 Watercolor, 25 1/4 x 21 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Philip Jamison and Family, 2012
CHARLES JAY
LEON KELLY
MITZI MELNICOFF
American, born 1947
American, 1901–1982
American, 1922–1972
Still Life (July 5, 1983, Paris), 1983
Group of Four Females, 1960
Poinsettia, 1972
Oil on board, 21 3/4 x 13 in.
Ink on paper, 24 x 16
Gouache over graphite on paper, 24 x 17 1/2 in.
Promised gift of Philip Jamison
Woodmere Art Museum: Given in memory of Janet Fleisher, 2014
DON KAISER
JOHN BROCK LEAR
MILDRED BUNTING MILLER
American, born 1945
American, 1910–2008
American, 1892–1964
Untitled, 2004–2005
Things Hanging, c. early 1940s
Woman with a Fan, date unknown
Oil on board, 16 x 12 in.
Pastel on paper, 25 x 18 7/8 in.
Untitled Too, 2004–2005
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Steven Ford, 2012
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2011
Digital photo collage on archival paper, 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 in.
DOUG MARTENSON
SAMANTHA MITCHELL
American, born 1960
American, born 1986
Status Quo, 1992
Ball Cycle 1, 2013
Medium, 40 x 50 in.
Etching, 15 x 15 in.
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Douglas and Camille Martenson, 2015
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2015
Digital photo collage on archival paper, 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 in.
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Josephine Albarelli, 2013 BEN KAMIHIRA
American, 1925–2004 Still Life with Plaster Masks, date unknown
1/ 2
in.
SUSAN MOORE
Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in.
SARAH MCENEANEY
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013
American, born Germany 1955
PAUL KANE
Rio Grande Hot Springs, 2009
American, born 1939 T.V. (Black and White #4), 1974 Acrylic on canvas, 68 x 60 in.
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Dr. Lorraine Kligman, 2014
Egg tempera on linen, 42 x 66 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2014
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Bill and Acey Wolgin, 2012
163
American, born 1953 Almetra’s Daughter, 2001 Gouache, ink, graphite, and casein on paper, 7 3/4 x 4 1/4 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Ann E. and Donald W. McPhail, 2013
CATHERINE MULLIGAN
American, born 1987 Save-a-lot (day), 2014 Oil on Masonite, 16 x 20 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2014 Taco Bell, 2014 Oil on paper, 8 x 10 in. Promised gift of Dorothy J. del Bueno
Portrait of Italian Coloratura Soprano Amelita Galli-Curci, 1918 Pastel on paper, 12 1/2 x 8 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2014 Writing the Krisheim News, El Oued, 1928 Watercolor on paper, 9 x 12 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Woodward Family, 2013
EDITH NEFF
American, 1943–1995
TOM PALMORE
American, born 1945 Oil on canvas, 50 x 43 in.
Untitled (Gorilla in Upholstered Chair), date unknown
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Barbara Torpie and Dr. Richard Torpie, 2013
Lithograph, 10 x 8 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Carl L. Steele, 2014
Swimming Pool at Hunting Park, 1977
PETER PAONE
Self-Portrait, 1971
American, born 1936
Oil on canvas, 53 x 70 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Drs. Herbert and Faith Cohen, 2014 VIOLET OAKLEY
American, 1847–1961 Drawings for Portrait of Italian Coloratura Soprano Amelita Galli-Curci, c. 1918 Graphite on paper, 6 x 4 in. each Promised gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Mourners, 1966 Oil on canvas, 35 x 40 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Joan L. Tobias, 2010
telephone book), 11 x 9 in. Jack II (Nicholson), 2008 Acrylic on paper (carved telephone book), 11 x 9 in. Self-Portrait II, 2014 Digital print on canvas, 48 x 36 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Robert E. and Frances Coulborn Kohler, 2014 ROBERT RIGGS
American, 1896–1970 Germantown and Chelten, date unknown Lithograph, 14 x 20 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Estate of Dr. Manuel and Beatrice Sloan, 2014 BEN ROSE
American, 1916–1980 Untitled (Power Lines, 30th St. Station), c. 1940 Gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Kathy and Peter Rose, 2013
ALEX QUERAL
American, born Cuba 1958 Aviator, 2007 Acrylic on paper (carved telephone book), 11 x 9 in. Hope (Barack Obama), 2008 Acrylic on paper (carved 164
MIA ROSENTHAL
American, born 1977 Sample-Sized Box of Rice Krispies, 2009 Ink on Mylar, 16 1/2 x 12 1/2 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2012
CHARLES SEARLES
Dead Little Bird, 1945
American, 1937–2004
Lithograph, edition of 20, 11 1/4 x 15 1/4 in.
Untitled (Boxer), 1963
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2014
India ink and watercolor, 21 7/8 x 14 7/8 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2012
WALTER STEUMPFIG
CHRISTOPHER SMITH
Fisherfolk Mending Nets, date unknown
American, born 1958
American, 1914–1970
Oil on canvas, 30 x 36 in. Sankofa Kore, 2011 Bronze, 57 x 12 x 20 in.
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist and Stephen Robin, 2015
Wood’s Quarry, date unknown Oil on canvas, 80 x 40 in.
JESSIE WILLCOX-SMITH
American, 1863–1935 The Tea Party, c. 1902 Casein and gouache on illustration board, varnished, 24 x 39 1/4 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Partial museum purchase and partial gift of Noel Butcher-Hanley FRANCIS SPEIGHT
American, 1896–1989 Spring in Manayunk, 1932
Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, with generous funding provided in part by The Barra Foundation Art Acquisition Fund, 2013 DOX THRASH
American, 1892–1965 Drawing for 24th and Ridge, c. 1940 Graphite on paper, 9 5/8 x 12 1/8 in. Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013
Oil on canvasboard, 13 x 20 in. Promised gift of Philip Jamison BENTON SPRUANCE
American, 1904–1967
165
Woodmere Art Museum receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania ouncil on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. General operating support provided, in part, by the Philadelphia Cultural Fund. Š 2014 Woodmere Art Museum. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher. Photography by Rick Echelmeyer unless otherwise noted. Front cover: Paperface (Broken Halos—Oh, I Know Where That Door Goes!), 1982, by Anthony-Petr Gorny (Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2013)
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