Art and the River Flows Into Michener Art Museum In New Hope This Summer

May 14, 2008

NEW HOPE, PA -- The James A. Michener Art Museum in New Hope celebrates the iconic influence of Bucks County's waterways, the Delaware River and Delaware Canal, as a powerful pull on regional landscape artists in Art and the River on view June 13 through October 5, 2008. This exhibition of over 50 works, on view in the Della Penna Gallery at the Museum's New Hope location, features historic and contemporary paintings, drawings and photographs. Artists included in Art and the River range from classic Pennsylvania Impressionist painters such as William L. Lathrop, Harry Leith-Ross, Daniel Garber, Edward Redfield and George Sotter through the New Hope Modernist era of the 1930s including C. F. Ramsay, BJO Nordfeldt and RAD Miller, to the diverse group of artists who are continuing the visual tradition in Bucks County today, such as Randl Bye, Diane Burko and Paul Matthews.

"Since early times, the gorgeous vistas along the Delaware River and Canal have lured artists to their shores for subject matter," says Erika Jaeger-Smith, Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the Museum. "These waterways have been celebrated in countless paintings, drawings and photographs, no matter what the prevailing style of art happened to be in a given decade or century. Part of my concept is to underscore this enduring subject in the present day."

Organized by the Michener Art Museum, Art and the River features works from important institutional and private collections, from as far away as Houston, Texas to the notable collections at the Reading Public Museum, the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which generously loaned two works by renowned Pennsylvania Impressionist painter Daniel Garber. Garber's paintings, Quarry and Lowry's Hill are works rarely seen in Bucks County, though they feature local subject matter.

Art and the River, which features the work of nearly 40 artists, showcases various artistic approaches and interpretations of waterways. Edward Redfield (1869-1965), for instance, whose work Early Spring (1920) is included in the exhibition, painted en plein air in an impressionist style. Situating himself behind three dominant trees in the forefront, while looking down onto the river and the homes that line the banks, he likely created this painting of the Delaware River in Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania near his home in Center Bridge.

Abstract artist Alan Goldstein (b.1938) chose to represent the Delaware River with organic shapes and an indistinguishable viewpoint. Goldstein has said the subject of his art is "the nature of nature" and he gets to the core of the river's life form in Upriver From Lumberville Walking Bridge II (ca. 1981) by rendering it in blocks of blues, shades of browns and rusts, and in a conceptual manner.

In conjunction with this exhibition, the Museum offers a special lecture, "The Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor and State Heritage Area" presented by Elissa G. Thorne, Vice President of Heritage Programs with the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor. Currently, her work with the Landmark Towns of Bucks County focuses on boosting the economies of Delaware River communities through public and private partnerships while preserving and enhancing heritage, natural and cultural resources. This lecture takes place Thursday, July 10 at 2:00 p.m., at Occasions adjacent to the Museum. The lecture is free with Museum admission; advance registration is required by calling (215) 340-9800.

This exhibition is sponsored by Jim's of Lambertville Fine Art Gallery. Additional funding is provided by Lou & Carol Della Penna, Marsha Brown Creole Kitchen at the Olde Stone Church, Nouveau Magazine, Park Place Antique Jewelry and Lambertville House.

This exhibition is also made possible through annual support provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Bucks County Commissioners and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, with additional funding by a grant from the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor through the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation & Natural Resources Heritage Area Program.

The James A. Michener Art Museum collects, preserves, interprets and exhibits American art, with a focus on art of the Bucks County region. The museum presents changing exhibitions that explore a variety of artistic expressions, and offers a diverse program of educational activities that seeks to develop a lifelong involvement in the arts as well as nurture a wide range of audiences. We also seek to educate our community about nationally and internationally known Bucks County artists of all creative disciplines. The James A. Michener Art Museum in New Hope is located at 500 Union Square Drive, New Hope, PA 18938. Gallery hrs: Tuesday-Friday. 11am-5pm, Sat. (Memorial Day through Labor Day) 11 am-6pm; Sun. 11am-5pm. Call 215-862-7633 or visit www.michenerartmuseum.org for further information.