Pennsylvania in Watercolor: Revisiting Nick Ruggieri’s Bicentennial Series

Posted by on Dec 1, 2025 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania in Watercolor: Revisiting Nick Ruggieri’s Bicentennial Series   In 1971, the Harrisburg Patriot-News commissioned local artist and newspaperman Nick Ruggieri (1908–96) to create a series of paintings depicting Pennsylvania scenes—both historic and contemporary — across all 67 counties. The project was intended to be the capital city newspaper’s contribution to the upcoming Bicentennial, a national celebration in which the Keystone State was expected...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Dec 1, 2025 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter What comes to mind when you think of Pennsylvania? The features in this edition spotlight perspectives on commonwealth culture through a painter’s scenic landscapes, a sculptor’s three-dimensional portraits of historical and folkloric figures, the state animal, and a popular food product. In the early 1970s, artist Nick Ruggieri was commissioned by the Harrisburg Patriot-News to select a...
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The World War One Diary & Art of Doughboy Cpl. Harold W. Pierce, edited by William J. Welch

Posted by on Sep 8, 2025 in | Comments Off on The World War One Diary & Art of Doughboy Cpl. Harold W. Pierce, edited by William J. Welch The World War One Diary & Art of Doughboy Cpl. Harold W. Pierce Duty, Terror and Survival edited by William J. Welch Pen & Sword, 224 pp., hardcover $37.95 Cpl. Harold Pierce’s diary is a fascinating glimpse of army life in a combat division in the First World War. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Pierce joined the 28th “Keystone” Division in 1917 and served through the armistice in...
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The Artist and the President: Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Painting Impulse and the Andrew Wyeth Connection

Posted by on Aug 9, 2024 in | Comments Off on The Artist and the President: Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Painting Impulse and the Andrew Wyeth Connection   After the popular Pennsylvania artist Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009) died at age 91 at his home in Chadds Ford, the New York Times obituary summed up his career, emphasizing key themes in his corpus and noting that he had both admirers and detractors. The former included British statesman Winston Churchill, himself an amateur painter of ability. To this list one could add President Dwight D....
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Aug 9, 2024 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter This issue of Pennsylvania Heritage, our 200th, is dedicated to Michael J. O’Malley III, who passed away on January 26, 2024. As many longtime readers know, Michael was the editor of this magazine for 30 years, and in that time, he played a crucial role in its development. He began working at the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission as a public information officer in 1978 and joined...
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Pennsylvania Heritage Newsletter – Spring 2023

Posted by on Mar 17, 2023 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Heritage Newsletter – Spring 2023 Topics in the Spring 2023 Newsletter: Curators Highlights Maritime Objects in PHMC Collections Linda Bolla on USS Michigan/Wolverine Prow Amy Hammond on Edward Moran’s Moonlight and Steamboat PHF Announces New Board Member   2023-Spring-PHF-Newsletter...
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American Workman by Maxwell King and Louise Lippincott

Posted by on Dec 15, 2022 in | Comments Off on American Workman by Maxwell King and Louise Lippincott American Workman The Life and Art of John Kane by Maxwell King and Louise Lippincott University of Pittsburgh Press, 288 pp., hardcover $40 American Workman: The Life and Art of John Kane reconsiders the legacy of a prominent, self-taught Pittsburgh artist. Kane was a pugnacious, heavy-drinking Scottish immigrant who toiled for 40 years in mines, steel mills and railyards before achieving...
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Artists of Wyeth Country by W. Barksdale Maynard

Posted by on Dec 1, 2021 in | Comments Off on 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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A Gift to America: Maxo Vanka and the Millvale Murals

Posted by on Nov 29, 2021 in | Comments Off on A Gift to America: Maxo Vanka and the Millvale Murals “This is my gift to America,” declared Croatian artist Maksimilijan “Maxo” Vanka (1889–1963) in 1941, when he completed a vast mural cycle for a small Catholic church in Millvale, Pennsylvania, a working-class town just across the river from Pittsburgh. A recent émigré, Vanka had not yet been in the United States a full decade when he completed the 4,500 square feet of wall painting for St....
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Dox Thrash and the “Poetry of the Artist’s Own People”

Posted by on Aug 23, 2021 in | Comments Off on Dox Thrash and the “Poetry of the Artist’s Own People” A son of sharecroppers, Dox Thrash was born in 1893 and raised in a cabin outside the town of Griffin in rural Georgia. The second of four children, he was raised primarily, perhaps solely, by his beloved mother, Ophelia. Throughout her adult life, Ophelia Thrash worked six to seven days a week as a housekeeper and cook for a white family named Taylor while providing materially and spiritually...
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