Cool Comes to PAFA - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

PAFA’s Latest
Acquisitions
Louis Lozowick, Pittsburgh, ca.1922, Oil on canvas, 22 7/9 x 13 3/8 inches, Henry C. Gibson
Fund, 2008.32
4
Since we updated you a year ago, PAFA’s
outstanding collection of American art has
grown by more than 450 artworks, through
gift and purchase. These include three
important collections: 174 etching plates
by Philadelphia landscape artist Herbert
Pullinger, donated by Ann C. and Martin Avery Snyder;
100 Polaroids and 51 black-and-white photographs by
Pop artist Andy Warhol, given by The Andy Warhol Foundation
for the Visual Arts; and 50 works of contemporary
art donated by Herbert and Dorothy Vogel.
The Vogels have confounded the notion that art collecting
is an expensive undertaking accessible only to people
with great wealth. On the salary of Herbert’s work as a
United States Postal worker and Dorothy’s as a librarian in
Brooklyn, they amassed more than 3,600 works primarily
by abstract, minimalist, and conceptual artists. Approximately
1,100 of these have been given to the National
Gallery of Art. Inspired by the example of Samuel H.
Kress, who made a large gift to the National Gallery and
then made smaller gifts to museums across the country,
the Vogels decided to give 50 works to a museum in every
one of the United States. PAFA is pleased that the Vogels
chose to make their gift in this state to the Academy.
Among the artists in their donation include Will Barnet,
Lynda Benglis, Nam June Paik, and Richard Tuttle.
Important purchases include paintings by Louis Lozowick
and Dox Thrash. PAFA added to its growing strength
in American modernism by purchasing Lozowick’s painting,
Pittsburgh (1922), a Futurist interpretation of the
industrial landscape. Best known as a printmaker, Dox
Thrash’s oil painting joins a distinguished group of artists’
self-portraits at PAFA, including works by Charles Willson
Peale, Benjamin West, John Sloan, and Margaret Foster
Richardson.
From the Desk of the Museum Director
By David R. Brigham
Edna S. Tuttleman Museum Director
We are thrilled to host Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the
Cool this fall. This important exhibition fits into a long tradition
at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts of educating,
collecting, exhibiting, and honoring Africa American artists and
their artwork.
That history begins in 1879 when Henry O. Tanner enrolled
as PAFA’s first African American student. He went on to a
career of international acclaim, including having his paintings
collected by the French government, exhibiting at the prestigious
Paris Salon for 20 consecutive years, and earning the
patronage of American museums and collectors. Indeed, PAFA
purchased Tanner’s Nicodemus in 1900, the year it was exhibited
in our annual exhibition.
Over the next 130 years, PAFA has educated approximately
200 African American artists. They include Laura Wheeler
Waring, an early twentieth-century art educator for whom a
Philadelphia public elementary school is named; the renowned
sculptor Meta Warrick Fuller; Louis B. Sloan, who became
PAFA’s first African American faculty member; Sloan’s classmate
Raymond Saunders; and later Moe Brooker, James
Brantley, Richard Watson, and Barkley Hendricks.
From 1941 to the late 1950s, PAFA supported the art activities
of the Pyramid Club, a black social and cultural organization
at 1517 Girard Avenue. PAFA students, alumni, and faculty
actively participated in the Pyramid Club’s annuals. PAFA, in
turn, exhibited works by Pyramid Club members, both in annual
exhibitions and occasionally in solo exhibitions. And PAFA purchased
works by Humbert Howard, Paul Keene, Dox Thrash,
Edward Loper, and others who were leaders at the Pyramid
Club.
PAFA has built a significant collection of African American
art, including works by Horace Pippin and Jacob Lawrence.
In 2004, this aspect of the collection was greatly enhanced
by the gift of Harold A. and Ann Sorgenti of their outstanding
collection of contemporary African American art. That important
collection goes on national tour, starting this summer at the Taft
Museum in Cincinnati, followed next year by the Columbia Museum
of Art in South Carolina; and in 2011 the Hudson River
Museum in New York.
Barkley Hendricks was recognized during his student days
at PAFA with the prestigious William Emlen Cresson and J.
Henry Schiedt Travel Scholarships. The year after Hendricks
graduated from PAFA, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Dilworth donated
his painting J.S.B. III, a portrait of his fellow alumnus James
Brantley. Hendricks’ paintings were exhibited in Philadelphia
galleries and collected locally, and several of those works will
be exhibited only at PAFA. Earlier this year, PAFA honored
Hendricks with the Distinguished Alumni Award, and now by
presenting an augmented version of the retrospective exhibition
of his paintings that is touring the nation to great acclaim.
We trust that Barkley’s link to PAFA and this beautiful exhibition
will be memorable chapters within the history of American
art and culture.
Barkley L. Hendricks, J.S.B.III, 1968, Oil on canvas. 48 x 34 3/8 inches. Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richardson Dilworth. 1969.17
PAFA Offers FREE Sundays to the Community
On Sunday, October 18, PAFA kicks off a new series of free Sunday programming, beginning with a much-anticipated
afternoon with artist Barkley L. Hendricks. Thanks to generous funding by both the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative
and the National Endowment for the Arts, PAFA will be able to waive all Sunday admission during the run Barkley L.
Hendricks: Birth of the Cool, as well as educate and entertain audiences with innovative performances, workshops,
and demonstrations that complement the work on view in the galleries.
Several Sundays feature jazz performances and workshops with members of the esteemed Philadelphia Clef Club of
Jazz, who bring expertise on the evolution of jazz movements, the funky, hip style of the jazz performer, and the influence
of Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool. These programs will offer attendees the opportunity to hear their favorite songs,
meet the men and women who have been playing in the jazz scene for decades, and spend an afternoon examining
the musical references that permeate Hendricks’ work.
Additional programs include a performance by Il Style and Peace, an acclaimed dance ensemble that demonstrates
locking, popping, breaking, old and new school hip hop, and house dance forms, with explanations of each different
movement and interactive explorations; art-making for the whole family, whether learning to paint a self-portrait or
practicing designing your own funky hats and accessories; story-telling in the galleries that incorporates song, rhythm,
and dance; and video screenings that put Hendricks’ work into the larger context of American history and culture.
Programs and free admission are available every Sunday, October 18, 2009 - January 3, 2010. For a
complete listing of programs and performances, please visit our website at www.pafa.org.
215-972-2075
www.pafa.org/Shop
Shop for Holiday Gifts in
Person or On Line!
Portfolio offers many great gift ideas every day.
New this holiday season we will feature fragrant oil
diffusers by Fringe Studio. Transferware glass bottles
come filled with highly fragranced diffuser oil. Gift
boxed set includes eight all natural reeds. Diffusers
will scent your room with either currant or hollyberry.
Tall amaryllis diffuser set: $75.00 (Members: $67.50)
Short berry diffuser set: $40.00 (Members: $36.00)