Past Exhibitions

Woodmere’s collection tells the story of the art and artists of Philadelphia. Over the last two years the Museum’s holdings have grown significantly, and this exhibition focuses on several active areas of collecting and promised gifts, among them works by Pennsylvania Impressionists, Arthur B. Carles and his circle, and contemporary abstract painters. Artists represented in the show include Carles, Jan Batzell, Bernard Badura, William Breckenridge, Quita Brodhead, Amanda Bush, Albert Gold, Elaine Kurtz, Roy C. Nuse, Violet Oakley, Bill Scott, A.K. Stoddard, and Francis Tucker.

Woodmere is pleased to announce that Violet Oakley and the Women Artists of Paris, an exhibition organized and presented at Woodmere in the Spring of 2011, will be on view in Harrisburg in the Governor’s Residence.

Woodmere is pleased to show works of art from the collection in honor of the 150th anniversary of the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Ethereal and mesmerizing, rich in color, bold and dynamic, the paintings of Murray Dessner are recognized for their directness and beauty. Murray Dessner: A Retrospective will be the first exhibition to survey the major achievements of Dessner’s career. It will include approximately thirty important paintings identified by the artist himself as among his greatest achievements, pulling from Woodmere’s collection as well as that of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and many distinguished private collections across Philadelphia and the region.

The exhibition explores the relationships among the art of Louise Fishman (b. 1939) and the work of her mother Gertrude Fisher-Fishman (b. 1916) and her aunt Razel Kapustin (1908-1968). Key pieces by the three artists, each of whom is represented in Woodmere’s collection, will be exhibited together, underscoring the pictorial, philosophical, and emotive relationships between three distinct artistic voices.

Artists have been invited to re-interpret the Adirondack chair, whether to paint it, redecorate it, redesign it, re-carve it, reassemble it, or just do something great with one of America’s great outdoor classics. Sixty nine works of art, in chair form, will be showcased throughout the garden at Morris Arboretum and at Woodmere Art Museum.

For centuries, Philadelphia has been a major center for narrative painting and “realism” in the arts. Haunting Narratives focuses on a twist to that long tradition: the thematically dark, hauntingly strange works of art made by realist painters and print makers of Philadelphia since the 1930s. We may even call the strangely illusionistic but oddly reconstructed realism endemic to Philadelphia a genre in the arts of the city.

Salvatore Pinto (1905 – 1966) was part of a Philadelphia-based family of artists that, along with his brothers Angelo and Biagio, Albert C. Barnes favored and collected. In a November 1932 article from the Philadelphia Bulletin, Barnes praised what he called “the Pintos’ most successful work,” noting how the strong compositions succeed even “when the picture is turned upside down.” Works of art by the three Pinto brothers are included in Barnes famous installation of his collection, now to open on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.

Force of Nature features two new exhibitions inspired by the natural world. Elaine Kurtz: A Retrospective celebrates the Philadelphia-born artist’s geometric works and nature-based abstractions. Elemental: Nature as Language in the Works of Philadelphia Artists brings together a diverse group of artists for whom nature has spurred creativity in form, style, and composition.

Flirting with Abstraction brings together some seventy-five works by Philadelphia artists who have used the language of abstraction—color, line, texture, scale, and form—to express the ideas, emotions, and sensuality of life’s experiences. Anchored by fine examples of abstract painting and sculpture from Woodmere’s collection, the exhibition also presents selections from the transformative promised gift of artist and Chestnut Hill resident Karen Segal, which will bring previously unimagined depth to the Museum’s holdings of twentieth- and twenty-first century art. Cell phone audio tour available. (Image: Jacqueline Cotter (born 1921), San Miguel, 1992, Pencil over oil on Mylar. Collection of Karen Segal.)