Sesqui! by Thomas H. Keels

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments Sesqui! Greed, Graft, and the Forgotten World’s Fair of 1926 by Thomas H. Keels Temple University Press,  376 pp, cloth $40 There are only a few physical remains of the Sesquicentennial International Exposition, a world’s fair staged in Philadelphia in 1926 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of American independence. These include two small lakes, a lookout gazebo, and a tan brick building that...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Louis I. Kahn: In the Realm of Architec­ture by David Bruce Brownlee and David G. De Long Museum of Contemporary Art and Rizzoli International Publications, 1991 (448 pages, paper, $34.95) Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974) had strong ties to Philadelphia during his internationally acclaimed architectural career. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1906, and was encouraged by the Graphic Sketch Club, Central...
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A Wooded Watershed (1926) by Daniel Garber

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Wooded Watershed (1926) by Daniel Garber Its whereabouts unknown to art historians and enthusiasts for nearly seventy years, a spectacular mural by acclaimed American artist Daniel Garber (1880-1958), one of the most famous members of the New Hope School, was recently rediscovered and returned to Bucks County, where it had been painted in 1926. Garber’s masterpiece, A Wooded Watershed, was originally commissioned by the...
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Violence and Vigilantes: The KKK in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Violence and Vigilantes: The KKK in Pennsylvania It was a warm, muggy day in early August 1921 in Philadelphia when F. W. Atkins of Jacksonville, Florida, and W. J. Bellamy of Cincinnati, Ohio, rented an office in the Bellevue Court Building to quietly recruit members for “a great and patriotic crusade to save the nation.” Their goal was to organize a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Posing as a prospective KKK initiate, a...
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Out and About

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Out and About Ben’s Big Birthday Bash To mark the three hundredth anniversary of Benjamin’s Franklin’s birth on January 17, 2006, the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary, a private, non-profit alliance, is spearheading a year-long observance dedicated to educating the public about the senior states­man’s enduring legacy and inspiring renewed appreciation for the values he embodied. Projects...
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From Manayunk to the Metropolitan: Philadelphia’s Martino Family of Artists

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on From Manayunk to the Metropolitan: Philadelphia’s Martino Family of Artists Asked to name a leading Pennsylvania family of artists, many will invariably cite the Calder, the Wyeth, or the Peale dynasties. But there is another family of fine artists, also deeply rooted in Philadelphia and environs, that produced credible and talented artists. They are the two generations of the Martino family — seven brothers, two wives, and two daughters. The talented brothers were the...
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