Shorts
Written by PA Heritage Staff in the Shorts category and the Winter 2002 issue Topics in this article: Andrew Wyeth, Brandywine River Museum, C. Emlen Urban, Carnegie Museum of Art, Christina Johnson, George Tooker, Hershey Bank, Hershey Cocoa Inn, Hershey Museum, Hotel Hershey, James A. Michener Art Museum, Kutztown Area Historical Society, Milton S. Hershey, Paul Cadmus, Pennypacker Mills, Samuel W. Pennypacker, State Museum of Pennsylvania, Thomas Hart Benton, W. Eugene SmithA major exhibition of stylish creations reflecting the changing fashions of designer hats through the years will open at the James A. Michener Art Museum on Saturday, January 19, 2002. Beginning with a rare circa 1780 calash (a folding bonnet) of silk and taffeta, Stylish Hats: 200 Years of Sartorial Splendor provides a colorful tour through the history of hat making during two centuries. Exotic and unusual examples of haute couture include nineteenth-century hats trimmed with ostrich tips, Edwardian era chapeaux decorated with preserved birds, chic cloches of the Roaring Twenties, and flower-banked cocktail hats of the sixties, made famous by Christian Dior. The artistry and craftsmanship of legendary milliners Virot, Felix, Schiaparelli, John Fredericks, Lily Dache, Balmain, and Balenciaga will be represented in the exhibit, which continues through Sunday, April 14. For more information, write: James A. Michener Art Museum, 138 South Pine St., Doylestown, PA 18901-4931; telephone (215) 340-9800; or visit the James A. Michener Art Museum website. Admission.
Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh Photographs, an exhibition of work by one of the twentieth century’s greatest photographers, remains on view at the Carnegie Museum of Art through Sunday, February 10, 2002. Dream Street brings together nearly one hundred photographs from Smith’s epic, unfished photo-essay about Pittsburgh in the mid-1950s, a body of work that he considered the finest of his career. This is the first time that these images, which Smith believed to be the synthesis of this immense project, have been exhibited together. In 1955, having just resigned from his high-profile but stormy post at Life magazine, Smith was commissioned to spend three weeks in Pittsburgh and produce one hundred photographs for Stefan Lorant’s book commemorating the city’s bicentennial, Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City. Instead, Smith stayed a year, compiling nearly seventeen thousand photographs for what would be the most ambitious photographic essay of his life, his intended magnum opus. To obtain more details, write: Carnegie Museum of Art, 4400 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213-4080; telephone (412) 622-3131; or visit the Carnegie Museum of Art website. Admission.
On Wednesday, April 17, 2002, Carl Constein will present a talk entitled “Flying the Hump in the China-Burma-India Theater During World War II” at the Kutztown Area Historical Society. Additional information is available by writing: Kutztown Area Historical Society, P.O. Box 307, Kutztown, PA 19530; by telephoning (610) 683-7697; or by emailing kahs1892@yahoo.com. Free.
On Sunday, March 10, 2002, the Pennsylvania State Archives will host its third annual “Family Heritage Afternoon” at The State Museum of Pennsylvania as part of Heritage Week 2002, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Celebrating the founding of the Commonwealth by William Penn in 1681, Heritage Week 2002, which will be observed from Friday, March 8, through Sunday, March 17, includes special interpretive tours, activities, and events, including the annual Penn Symposium. The theme of the 2002 symposium is Honoring Penn’s Vision for His Lands. For more information write: Heritage Week 2002, PHMC Press Office, 300 North Street, Harrisburg, PA 17120-0024; telephone (717) 783-9882. Free.
Opening Saturday, March 9, 2002, at the Brandywine River Museum is Milk and Eggs: The American Revival of Tempera Painting, 1930-1950. Beginning in the 1930s, a renaissance of the medieval technique of tempera painting occurred among many well known, but unconnected, American artists. The exhibition, which runs through Sunday, May 19, explores the twentieth-century revival of this medium through more than fifty works of art executed in tempera by Andrew Wyeth, Thomas Hart Benton, Paul Cadmus, George Tooker, and others. Additional details may be obtained by writing: Brandywine River Museum, P.O. Box 141, Chadds Ford, PA 19317; telephone (610) 459-3342. Admission.
Visitors can still explore, through Sunday, April 14, 2002, an exhibit at Pennypacker Mills that traces how Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker (1843-1916) transformed, a century ago, an old family farmhouse in Montgomery County into an early twentieth century “dream house.” From Colonial Farmhouse to Country Gentleman’s Estate features blueprints, drawings, photographs, and letters. For additional information, write: Pennypacker Mills, 5 Haldeman Rd., Schwenksville, PA 19473; telephone (610) 287-9349. Free.
Recognizing his important role in creating the community of Hershey as residents and visitors know it today, the Hershey Museum is showing, through Monday, April 8, 2002, an exhibit entitled D. Paul Witmer: Architect of a Community. The architect relocated to the community in 1924 and embarked on a lifelong career in creating the utopian community envisioned by candymaker Milton S. Hershey. Witmer oversaw construction not only of residential structures, but also commercial and recreational buildings, among them the Hershey Bank and the Cocoa Inn (see “Lost & Found,” Fall 2001). He designed and built the Hotel Hershey, built the Community Building designed by C. Emlen Urban, and assisted with the construction of the Hershey Arena designed by internationally noted architect Anton Tedesko. Nearly every major building in Hershey was organized, designed, or constructed by Witmer. The exhibition explores Witmer’s impact not merely on the landscape, but on Hershey’s social fabric and sense of community. To obtain more information, write: Hershey Museum, 170 West Hersheypark Dr., Hershey, PA 17033; telephone (717) 534-3439; email info@hersheymuseum.org; or visit the Hershey Museum website. Admission.
A lecture and demonstration, Sewing Secret Codes: The Underground Railroad in African American Quilts, will be presented by Philadelphia-based quilt .artist and researcher Christina Johnson on Sunday, February 10, 2002, at the Mercer Museum. in Doylestown. She will discuss the coded designs devised by nineteenth-century quilters in the fight for abolition. On Saturday, February 16, a special interpretive tour of the museum’s holdings will focus on the history of African Americans during the era of the American Revolution. For more details, write Mercer Museum, Bucks County Historical Society, 84 South Pine St., Doylestown, PA 18901-4999; telephone (215) 345-0210; e-mail info@mercer museum.org; or visit the Mercer Museum website. Admission.
