The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts: An Ideal and a Symbol

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts: An Ideal and a Symbol By 1805, the year the Pennsylvania Acad­emy of the Fine Arts was founded, Phila­delphia had achieved a large measure of political, social and economic stability. It had been the nation’s capital and contin­ued to thrive as a center of banking and commerce. The largest city in the United States at the opening of the nineteenth century, it was arguably the center of culture, with Boston its...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts “Tricks of the Trade: Apprenticeships in the Traditional Arts,” an exhibition ex­ploring the relationships between master artists and artisans and their apprentices will be shown at the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh, from Wednesday, January 10, through Friday, February 23, 1996. “Tricks of the Trade” documents more than one hundred part­nerships in a...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents To Be Modern In 1921, Philadelphia’s venerable Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts mounted the first comprehensive display of American modernist works in an American museum with the ground­breaking “Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings Showing the Later Tendencies in Art.” The exhibition’s selection com­mittee, composed of such “moderns” as Thomas Hart...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts To observe the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its opening in 1848, Girard College will unveil an exhibition entitled “Monument to Philanthropy: The Design and Building of Girard College, 1832-1848,” on Sunday, May 3 [1998]. Financier Stephen Girard (1750-1831) established the school for orphans with a bequest of seven million dollars (see “Girard College: A Story of...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts A 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....
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts On Friday and Saturday, July 26-27 [2002], the Slate Belt Heritage Center, in Bangor, will host “Slate Belt Heritage Days,” replete with walking tours, local history talks, horse-drawn carriage rides, story­tellers, crafts demonstrations, and a guid­ed tour of an operating slate quarry. The history of the slate industry in Northampton County is traced to the mid-nineteenth century,...
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Current and Coming

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Current and Coming Jimmy Stewart Upon his death at the age of eighty-­nine, James Maitland Stewart (1908-1997) – Jimmy Stewart to adoring fans throughout the world – was described by Washington Post staff writer Bart Barnes as “a motion picture Olympian with an all-American image and a universal appeal whose roles as a movie actor helped define a national culture.” During his career, he...
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Two Hundred Years and Counting – The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Two Hundred Years and Counting – The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Two centuries ago, on Thursday, Decem­ber 26, 1805, seventy-one individuals gathered at the State House (now Independence Hall) to formally establish an art institution for Philadelphia. Meetings throughout the summer had led to the drafting of a charter, formation of a board of directors, and the collection of funds for a building. By the day after Christmas, a professional calligraph­er had...
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Out and About

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Out and About Family Affair Much Like her famous great-grandfather, Elizabeth Duane Gillespie (1821-1901) was a spirited, community-minded Philadel­phian, a tireless champion of causes she believed were in the best interests of fel­low citizens. Her notable ancestor? None other than Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). As part of the myriad events and exhibits staged in and beyond Philadelphia to mark the three...
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Rediscovering the People’s Art: New Deal Murals in Pennsylvania’s Post Offices

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Rediscovering the People’s Art: New Deal Murals in Pennsylvania’s Post Offices On a February morning in 1937, artist George Warren Rickey (1907-2002) and a group of four men met at the post office in Selinsgrove, Snyder County. Armed with cloth-covered rolling pins, the men attached Rickey’s mural entitled Susquehanna Trail to one of the lobby’s end walls. After six hours, they transformed the entire blank white wall, from marble wainscoting to ceiling, into a...
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