Art of the State 2019 / Scholars in Residence

Posted by on Apr 22, 2020 in | Comments Off on Art of the State 2019 / Scholars in Residence Art of the State 2019 On June 23, 2019, Pennsylvania’s finest artists mingled with guests at the opening of Art of the State: Pennsylvania 2019 at The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. The 52nd annual juried exhibition, presented by the museum in association with the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation, PHMC’s nonprofit partner, showcased 110 works of art by 103 artists from 35 counties...
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Bubley by Greyhound: Photographing Wartime Rationing

Posted by on Feb 3, 2020 in | Comments Off on Bubley by Greyhound: Photographing Wartime Rationing Most photographs from World War II document industries or overseas military activities. Rarely do we get a look at daily life on the home front. One young woman who was documenting ordinary lives at that time was Esther Bubley (1921–98), who became known for taking intimate photos of people despite lugging around a large camera. There’s no better example of that than a story from her niece Jean...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Feb 3, 2020 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter “You can give humanistic value to almost anything by teaching it historically.” So wrote American philosopher William James in an address he delivered in 1907. Even such disciplines as “geology, economics and mechanics,” he continued, are “humanities when taught with reference to the successive achievements of the geniuses to which these sciences owe their being.” By extension, the features in...
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Sol Mednick’s Photography

Posted by on Jan 14, 2020 in | Comments Off on Sol Mednick’s Photography In the mid-1950s, photographer Sol Mednick (1916–70) created this untitled gelatin silver print. Although no documentation has been found that describes the process by which the artist composed this mysterious, abstract image, it is clear that the camera was not the only tool used to achieve the strange effects in its composition. During the darkroom printing process Mednick apparently exposed...
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A British Lord in the Pennsylvania State Archives / Art of the State 2018

Posted by on Dec 1, 2019 in | Comments Off on A British Lord in the Pennsylvania State Archives / Art of the State 2018 A British Lord in the Pennsylvania State Archives In April 2018 a member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom visited the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, to study documents related to Pennsylvania’s founder and first proprietor William Penn in hopes of learning more about issues of tolerance. Nathanael Ming-Yan “Nat” Wei of Shoreditch was introduced in the House...
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Philadelphia: Finding the Hidden City by Joseph E. B. Elliott, Nathaniel Popkin and Peter Woodall

Posted by on Nov 12, 2019 in | Comments Off on Philadelphia: Finding the Hidden City by Joseph E. B. Elliott, Nathaniel Popkin and Peter Woodall Philadelphia Finding the Hidden City by Joseph E. B. Elliott, Nathaniel Popkin and Peter Woodall Temple University Press, 192 pp., cloth $40 For me, Philadelphia: Finding the Hidden City is a whatever-happened-to sequel to the Philadelphia I first discovered in the 1980s. Recently deindustrialized and far from redeveloped, Philly in that decade was indeed a 12 Monkeys city, referencing the 1995...
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Wyalusing Rocks and the Federal Writers’ Project

Posted by on Oct 25, 2019 in | Comments Off on Wyalusing Rocks and the Federal Writers’ Project Peering northwest at the Lehigh Valley Railroad and surrounding farmland from Wyalusing Rocks, several hundred feet above the Susquehanna River in Bradford County, these four observers are likely Federal Writers’ Project field workers. A spectacular lookout first revered by the region’s native inhabitants, Wyalusing Rocks is an outcropping of red sandstone located along the Warrior’s Path, a...
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Aeroplane Reconnaissance Photography in World War I

Posted by on Oct 22, 2019 in | Comments Off on Aeroplane Reconnaissance Photography in World War I World War I marked a significant turning point in the history of armed conflict for many reasons, not the least of which was the development of more sophisticated reconnaissance. For thousands of years, men on horseback served as the main vehicle for information-gathering in most armies. With the proliferation of trench warfare and the mechanization of equipment in the Great War, the horse...
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Charles Sheeler by Kirsten M. Jensen

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments Charles Sheeler Fashion, Photography, and Sculptural Form Edited by Kirsten M. Jensen James A. Michener Art Museum, distributed by the University of Pennsylvania Press, 234 pp., cloth $49.95 This volume is the catalog from the exhibit Charles Sheeler: Fashion, Photography, and Sculptural Form that ran from March 18 to July 9, 2017, at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Bucks County....
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Art of the State 2017

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments Art of the State, the annual juried exhibition at The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, marked its 50th occurrence this year, showcasing 130 works selected from more than 2,200 submissions. Since 1968 the museum has served as the venue each year for Pennsylvania artists to share their ideas and engage viewers through a diverse body of artwork (see “Representing...
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