Painter’s Folly

Located in the heart of the Brandywine Valley, Painter’s Folly — along with the surrounding historic sites and landscapes — has inspired generations of artists. Today, thanks to an effort led by Chadds Ford Township, the building has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The building’s unique name is not related to its association with the famous Brandywine School of artists...
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Artists of Wyeth Country by W. Barksdale Maynard

Artists of Wyeth Country Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, and Andrew Wyeth by W. Barksdale Maynard Temple University Press, 237 pp., paperback $23 Few artists are so intimately associated with a regional landscape as the painters of the Brandywine area, popularly known as “Wyeth Country.” Rooted in exacting draftsmanship and rich visual storytelling, this artistic tradition was founded by illustrator...
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Artful Trails

In honor of the 50th Art of the State exhibition, open through September 10, 2017, at The State Museum of Pennsylvania, we’re exploring art at other historic sites and museums along PHMC’s Pennsylvania Trails of History. As visual storytellers, our sites employ a multidisciplinary approach to documenting and sharing Pennsylvania heritage. Artworks frequently play a role in the study...
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Representing Pennsylvania’s “Precious Heritage”: Art of the State 50

Art of the State is an annual juried exhibition that has been showcasing the work of Pennsylvania’s artists at The State Museum of Pennsylvania since 1968. The body of art that has been exhibited reflects half a century of creative endeavor in the Keystone State. Through the years, exhibitors have shared their ideas and engaged viewers in the categories of painting, photography, craft,...
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Recruitment, Conservation and Liberty Bonds: Posters and the War to End All Wars

The Pennsylvania State Archives holds a large and significant collection of World War I posters – 460 in all – that were hung throughout the Keystone State and around the country during the Great War. Many of these posters were produced on a national scale, although some were created specifically in Pennsylvania. The posters provide a fascinating glimpse at the means by which valued...
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Curating a New Home for History: A Conversation with W. Fred Kinsey and Irwin Richman

Established institutions rarely get the opportunity to hit the reset button. But that’s what happened with The State Museum of Pennsylvania in the early 1960s, after the long-anticipated William Penn Memorial Museum and Archives Building cleared its last bureaucratic hurdle. Ground was broken north of the State Capitol in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, in January 1962, and by summer Pennsylvania’s...
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From the Executive Director

On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2015, N.C. Wyeth’s 1913 painting The Wreck of the “Covenant” was exhibited at The State Museum of Pennsylvania for the first time in 50 years. In 1965 it had been featured in the museum’s opening show, N.C. Wyeth and the Brandywine Tradition, at the dedication, and now it was being loaned to us again by the Brandywine River Museum for another very special...
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Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Spring 2015

Topics in the Spring 2015 Newsletter: Restoration of Mammal Hall – Your Help is Needed! The Giving Circle Trails of History Sites and Museums Inaugural Exhibit of Pennsylvania Arts The State Museum Opens New Nature Lab Pennsylvania Modern Architecture Save the Date – 50th Anniversary Gala Join the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation  ...
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The Brandywine by W. Barksdale Maynard

The Brandywine: An Intimate Portrait by W. Barksdale Maynard University of Pennsylvania Press, 256 pp, cloth $34.95 My life story is riverine. I was born near the Hudson, summered along the Neversink, went to college in view of the Potomac, attended graduate school at the confluence of the Schuylkill and the Delaware, and live uphill from the Susquehanna. I have a long-standing love affair with...
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The Deerslayer by N.C. Wyeth

  In December 1967 PHMC chairman James B. Stevenson accepted an original painting by N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945) for the collection of The State Museum of Pennsylvania from Mrs. George R. Bailey of the George R. Bailey Foundation of Harrisburg, Dauphin County, in a ceremony held in the museum’s Memorial Hall. The painting had been created as the cover design for the 1925 Scribner Illustrated...
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