PAFA: Kelley Collection of African American Art Now On View

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The Harmon & Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art: Works on Paper

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building

Now on view through October 12

William E. Smith,
 A Friendly Game, 1944

Curator Anna O. Marley’s striking installation of the Kelley Collection is in one enormous room without dividers or vitrines. Directly across the entrance is a William E. Smith ink study of World War II-era musicians with their instruments. It’s a small work with fine detail but still an arresting first sight upon entering the room. (A Smith drawing from the Gallery's collection is at right.)

The exhibition is arranged thematically in groups such as dance scenes or political protest. In personal notes from the collectors Mrs. Kelley commented that she was drawn to the works of the depression era through the dignity with which artists drew the figures at work and to the portrayal of everyday farm life that she herself experienced as a child.

The main focus is on the 1930s and 40s, a period when many African American artists entered the field, in part through the efforts New Deal programs such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Broad Street, Philadelphia.

JODY PINTO’S Land Buoy unveiled in Philadelphia.

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It was a BEAUTIFUL DAY. Friday, August 15 was the ribbon-cutting of Washington Avenue Park with JODY PINTO’S Land Buoy referencing both ecology and the history of the site.

Jody Pinto, Land Buoy, August 15, 2014, at the
eastern end of the Washington Avenue Park.
The artist is at the top, in turquoise.

       The park was developed by the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation and is part of a series of projects renewing Philadelphia’s waterfront. It is the original location of Pier 53, an immigration entry point and home to an early Navy shipyard. A path leads the visitor through established trees and a newly planted local habitat, and past spots where one can actually touch the river water. At the furthest end of the walkway, and a clear destination point, is Land Buoy.

       The Washington Avenue Park is in South Philadelphia, at Washington Avenue and Columbus Boulevard, directly behind the Sheet Metal Workers Union Hall. Across the river are the city of Camden and the Battleship New Jersey. It feels like midway between the Benjamin Franklin and Walt Whitman Bridges.

       Philadelphia has made enormous progress in reclaiming its waterfront. Adjacent to the park is a walking and bike path -- turn a corner and there are quiet and greenery and stunning river views. There were unconfirmed rumors of bizarre turtle activity and one very handsome cormorant. There’s no question that fish and birds are returning to this stretch of the Delaware.

      Pier 53 was an immigration point from the 1870s until 1915. Remnants of the old foundations that are still in the water extend beyond the new walkway – these grid-patterned wood pilings delineate the scale and shape of the original pier. The more than one million arrivals were mostly eastern and southern European families; some of their descendants still live nearby in the Italian Market neighborhood. Jody Pinto’s father, the artist Angelo Pinto, and this family came to American through Pier 53.

       Land Buoy is fifty-five feet tall, with a rope-inspired spiral staircase that leads up sixteen feet. There’s a solar-powered blue top that will glow at night. The act of walking up the stairs lowers anxiety as it raises expectations: the 360-degree view at the top is breathtaking. If there’s enough wind the spire will move and seem to adjust itself – to be on the stairs when that happens is amazingly invigorating.

       On Friday, when the crowd had gathered, Philadelphia’s Mayor Michael Nutter was clearly enjoying himself. It was such a pleasant occasion and everyone was having a good time. He did express concern about that afternoon’s Little League game.  He needn’t have worried: Mo’ne Davis carried the Taney Dragons to victory. It was a wonderful day all around.

Useful links:

http://www.delawareriverwaterfront.com/search?q=pier+53

http://washingtonavenuegreen.com/index.html

An extensive discussion of the Pinto family’s Philadelphia history:

http://hiddencityphila.org/2014/08/the-pintos-a-philadelphia-immigration-story-told-through-art-at-pier-53/

Historical photographs of the Pier:

www.delawareriverwaterfront.com/hi-res-photos/2013/10/30/pier-532

Summertime show on view through August 14.

The Summertime show is on view through August 14.

Today is the 31st of July!  Here's Betty Waldo Parish's woodcut, The 31st of July, 1935.

SUMMERTIME Now on View

 

JULY 8 THROUGH AUGUST 14, 2014

American paintings and works on paper and 

glass from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Will Banret, Summer, 1952

Artists love the summer as much as the rest of us. 

On the Gallery’s South Wall there’s a stream of 

identical blue flowing from an Angelo Pinto 

drawing to a Fred Shane painting to a William 

Baziotes watercolor.

Peggy Bacon, The Beauties of Nature, 1942

Long days at the beach (Wellfleet, Long Beach 

Island, NYC, Kennebunk, the Aleutians, LaJolla), 

in the water (ocean waves, lakes, bays, rivers), 

boardwalks, amusement parks, picnics, bikinis, trees

bursting with greens from chartreuse to teal, 

fishermen who’ve forgotten to go home, soldiers on 

V-J Day, and, of course, baseball – this show has 

them all.

 
Works by:

PEGGY BACON

WILL BARNET 
WILLIAM BAZIOTES
BERNARDA BRYSON SHAHN
HOWARD DAUM 
RIVA HELFOND 
CHARLES KELLER
DOROTHY BROWDY KUSHNER
EDWARD LANING 
BETTY WALDO PARISH 
ANGELO PINTO
ALBERT POTTER
ANNE RYAN
BEN SHAHN 
JUDITH SHAHN 
FRED SHANE
MARY SINCLAIR 
LYND WARD 
 

The entire show may be seen under Exhibitions 
at WWW.SUSANTELLERGALLERY.COM

TUESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY, 11 AM TO 5 PM

SATURDAYS BY APPOINTMENT OR BY CHANCE

AMERICAN MINING Now on View in Gallery

AMERICAN MINING

PAINTINGS AND WORKS ON PAPER, 1932 TO 1947

JUNE 4 -- 28, 2014

Fred Shane, Climax, Colorado, 1943-44 (A molybdenum mine)

The paintings and works on paper in this exhibition largely feature coalmines and miners of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, as well as feldspar mining in North Carolina and a molybdenum mine in Climax, Colorado.

         The earliest works in the show are by Riva Helfond. Her future husband, Bill Barrett, was from the anthracite region of northeastern Pennsylvania and her works of that area date from 1932.

         In 1936 Harry Sternberg was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to record American industry; the coalmines of Pennsylvania were a focus of that project. Sternberg was an instructor at the Art Students League in New York City. Helfond was in one of his classes and she had entrée into the homes of miners. In the 1936-37 season Sternberg and a few students would leave New York on Friday afternoons, drive to Pennsylvania, and stay with a mining family. They would draw on Saturday and then head back to the city on Sunday.

         Will Barnet, Blanche Grambs, Mary Sinclair (whose work in the show dates to 1934), and Charles Keller (represented here by the Deer Park Mine, a source of feldspar in North Carolina), all worked at the League. There are also pieces by Georges Schreiber and Ben Shahn.

         A number of the works in show are by Michael J. Gallagher. From a mining family, Gallagher was the director of the Philadelphia WPA Printmaking Project; Hugh Mesibov also worked at that shop. Recently the Gallagher estate released a significant number of early prints, including the iconic carborundum print Anthracite, 1939-40, that have not been on the market in decades. 

         The Fred Shane painting Climax, Colorado, 1943-44, refers to the site of an enormous molybdenum mine still in operation. Molybdenum, a metal with an extremely high melting point, is used in the production of steel.

         The entire show may be seen under Exhibitions at WWW.SUSANTELLERGALLERY.COM

HOURS: TUESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, 11 AM TO 5 PM

Artists of Roosevelt

On view through tomorrow, May 25:

Artists of Roosevelt

New Jersey State Museum, Trenton

Bernarda Bryson Shahn, Little Winter Sky, 1990

Works by BERNARDA BRYSON SHAHN, BEN SHAHN, and JONATHAN SHAHN, on included. The museum’s permanent collection is showing paintings by BEN SHAHN and ALICE TRUMBULL MASON.

Medium at Muse: Woodcuts and the Modern Book

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On view through May 11, 2014

Medium at Muse: Woodcuts and the 
Modern Book

The Morgan Library & Museum, NYC

Lynd Ward, Wild Pilgrimage, 1932

Lynd Ward is featured with woodcuts from Wild Pilgrimage, 1932, and the U.S. Pipeline company’s advertisements and calendars (although the Morgan didn’t go into those), 1946. Also in the show is the short film by Elias Katz. It documents Ward working on a print for Vertigo, 1937. 

Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris are also well represented.