James A. Michener Art Museum
Encyclopedia
The James A. Michener Art Museum is a private, non-profit museum in Doylestown
, Bucks County
, Pennsylvania
founded in 1988 and named for the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer James A. Michener
, a Doylestown resident. It is situated within the old stone walls of an historic 19th century prison and houses a collection of Bucks County visual arts, along with holdings of 19th and 20th century American art. It is noted for its Pennsylvania Impressionism
collection, an art colony centered in near by New Hope
during the early 20th century.
founded an informal committee along with Bucks County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Charles H. Boehm, and The Daily Intelligencer
editor George Hotchkiss to explore the possibilities of the establishment of such an institution.
In the 1970s Bucks County commissioners established the Bucks County Council on the Arts, an agency set up to manege federal funded artwork intended be included in government building projects. Some of the artwork they collected was put on display at their headquarters the Neshaminy Manor office in Doylestown Township. In 1974 the Council also helped establish a mobile art exhibit, the "Artmobile" of Bucks County Community College.
In the mid 1988 the Bucks County commissioners approved $650,000 to build an art museum in the recently closed Bucks County Prison. Bucks County Council on the Arts became the organization charged with running the institution and their collected works became part of the museum collection. James A. Michener, who grew up in Doylestown, took the lead in establishing the endowment, donating $500,000 as well as some of the paintings from his own private collection (Michener would go on to donate a total of $8.5 million to the museum). The site was renovated by led architects O’Donnell & Naccarato, Inc., from Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The warden’s house and the control buildings were converted to office space and exhibition space. Part of the prison walls remain, which now provide a backdrop to the Museum's outdoor sculpture. The Museum was named the James A. Michener Art Museum and opened to the public on September 15, 1988 at a ceremony presided over by Michener and his wife, Mari Sabusawa Michener.
In 1993, the museum had its first major expansion designed by Lynn Taylor Associates from Doylestown, Pennsylvania which included larger exhibitions galleries and a storage vault. A few years later, in 1996, the Museum had its second major expansion which included the installation of the Mari Sabusawa Michener Wing, also designed by Lynn Taylor Associates. In 1999 there was a major expansion in the museums collection when Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest donated 54 Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings along with $3 million dollars for the museum's endowment. In 2009, the Museum opened the Syd and Sharon Martin Wing, designed by architects RMJM Hillier from Princeton, NJ. This included a new 5000 square feet (464.5 m²) gallery space and additional administrative offices.
The museum is currently undergoing a renovation, scheduled to open in spring 2012, which will include the new Edgar N. Putman Event Pavilion designed by KieranTimberlake, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This new 2700 square feet (250.8 m²) all-glass structure with a solid roof and sliding doors on its east and west sides will host events and programs.
The Michener opened a satellite site in 2003, in New Hope, Pennsylvania, designed by architects Minno & Wasko. This facility closed in 2009. There are plans to have this site reopen to become the Bucks County Children’s Museum.
designed an expanded facility that included a three-story warden's house and guardhouse control center in a “T” shape, using a combination of Italianate and Romanesque Revival styles. The architecture was inspired by Quaker ideas of reflection and penitence that dominated the American prison system in the 19th century. The overall design concept of the prison was modeled after the Eastern State Penitentiary
in Philadelphia built in 1829. The Bucks County Prison closed in 1985. The warden's house is a significant contributing property
in the Doylestown Historic District, listed by the National Register of Historic Places
in 1985.
or New Hope school, American primitive painters, limners and modernists. Works by abstract expressionists are on long-term loan from the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, where James A. Michener and his wife, Mari, donated a major portion of their private art collection. In addition to the permanent exhibitions, the Museum presents 15 changing exhibitions each year. These exhibitions feature a broad spectrum of artistic styles and mediums.
, a movement from the first half of the 20th century centered around Bucks County, Pennsylvania
. Artists in this movement include John Fulton Folinsbee
, Walter Emerson Baum
, George Sotter
, Nate Dunn
, Fern Coppedge
, Edward Redfield, Daniel Garber
and Walter E. Schofield. Similar to the French impressionist
movement, this artwork is characterized by a plein air style interested in the quality of color, light, and the time of day.
(1780-1849), master woodworker George Nakashima
(1905-1990), sculptor Raymond Granville Barger (1906 - 2001), and authors and illustrators Stan and Jan Berenstain
.
Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Doylestown is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia. As of the 2010 census, the borough population was 8,380. The borough is the county seat of Bucks County.- History :...
, Bucks County
Bucks County, Pennsylvania
- Industry and commerce :The boroughs of Bristol and Morrisville were prominent industrial centers along the Northeast Corridor during World War II. Suburban development accelerated in Lower Bucks in the 1950s with the opening of Levittown, Pennsylvania, the second such "Levittown" designed by...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
founded in 1988 and named for the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer James A. Michener
James A. Michener
James Albert Michener was an American author of more than 40 titles, the majority of which were sweeping sagas, covering the lives of many generations in particular geographic locales and incorporating historical facts into the stories...
, a Doylestown resident. It is situated within the old stone walls of an historic 19th century prison and houses a collection of Bucks County visual arts, along with holdings of 19th and 20th century American art. It is noted for its Pennsylvania Impressionism
Pennsylvania Impressionism
Pennsylvania Impressionism refers to an American Impressionist movement from the first half of the 20th century that was centered in and around Bucks County, Pennsylvania, particularly the area around the town of New Hope...
collection, an art colony centered in near by New Hope
New Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope, formerly known as Coryell's Ferry, is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, USA. The population was 2,528 at the 2010 census. The borough lies on the west bank of the Delaware River at its confluence with Aquetong Creek. A two-lane bridge carries automobile and foot traffic across the...
during the early 20th century.
Facility
The Museum has 35400 square feet (3,288.8 m²) of space, with a landscaped courtyard, an outdoor sculpture garden and terrace built in the original prison yard, seminar and conference facilities, a museum shop and café, and the George Nakashima Reading Room. The Martin Wing includes preparation areas and collection storage spaces.History
The idea of a museum in Doylestown dedicated to the works of the Pennsylvania Impressionists has been around at least since 1949, when local artist Walter Emerson BaumWalter Emerson Baum
Walter Emerson Baum was an American artist and educator active in the Bucks and Lehigh County areas of Pennsylvania in the United States...
founded an informal committee along with Bucks County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Charles H. Boehm, and The Daily Intelligencer
The Intelligencer (Doylestown, Pennsylvania)
The Intelligencer is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper published in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The newspaper serves central and northern Bucks County as well as adjacent areas of eastern Montgomery County...
editor George Hotchkiss to explore the possibilities of the establishment of such an institution.
In the 1970s Bucks County commissioners established the Bucks County Council on the Arts, an agency set up to manege federal funded artwork intended be included in government building projects. Some of the artwork they collected was put on display at their headquarters the Neshaminy Manor office in Doylestown Township. In 1974 the Council also helped establish a mobile art exhibit, the "Artmobile" of Bucks County Community College.
In the mid 1988 the Bucks County commissioners approved $650,000 to build an art museum in the recently closed Bucks County Prison. Bucks County Council on the Arts became the organization charged with running the institution and their collected works became part of the museum collection. James A. Michener, who grew up in Doylestown, took the lead in establishing the endowment, donating $500,000 as well as some of the paintings from his own private collection (Michener would go on to donate a total of $8.5 million to the museum). The site was renovated by led architects O’Donnell & Naccarato, Inc., from Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The warden’s house and the control buildings were converted to office space and exhibition space. Part of the prison walls remain, which now provide a backdrop to the Museum's outdoor sculpture. The Museum was named the James A. Michener Art Museum and opened to the public on September 15, 1988 at a ceremony presided over by Michener and his wife, Mari Sabusawa Michener.
In 1993, the museum had its first major expansion designed by Lynn Taylor Associates from Doylestown, Pennsylvania which included larger exhibitions galleries and a storage vault. A few years later, in 1996, the Museum had its second major expansion which included the installation of the Mari Sabusawa Michener Wing, also designed by Lynn Taylor Associates. In 1999 there was a major expansion in the museums collection when Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest donated 54 Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings along with $3 million dollars for the museum's endowment. In 2009, the Museum opened the Syd and Sharon Martin Wing, designed by architects RMJM Hillier from Princeton, NJ. This included a new 5000 square feet (464.5 m²) gallery space and additional administrative offices.
The museum is currently undergoing a renovation, scheduled to open in spring 2012, which will include the new Edgar N. Putman Event Pavilion designed by KieranTimberlake, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This new 2700 square feet (250.8 m²) all-glass structure with a solid roof and sliding doors on its east and west sides will host events and programs.
The Michener opened a satellite site in 2003, in New Hope, Pennsylvania, designed by architects Minno & Wasko. This facility closed in 2009. There are plans to have this site reopen to become the Bucks County Children’s Museum.
The prison
The Bucks County Prison which is now known as the Michener Art Museum originally opened in 1884. Philadelphia architect Addison HuttonAddison Hutton
Addison Hutton was a Philadelphia architect who designed prominent residences in Philadelphia and its suburbs, plus courthouses, hospitals, and libraries, including the Ridgway Library and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania...
designed an expanded facility that included a three-story warden's house and guardhouse control center in a “T” shape, using a combination of Italianate and Romanesque Revival styles. The architecture was inspired by Quaker ideas of reflection and penitence that dominated the American prison system in the 19th century. The overall design concept of the prison was modeled after the Eastern State Penitentiary
Eastern State Penitentiary
The Eastern State Penitentiary is a former American prison in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is located on 2027 Fairmount Avenue between Corinthian Avenue and North 22nd Street in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia and was operational from 1829 until 1971...
in Philadelphia built in 1829. The Bucks County Prison closed in 1985. The warden's house is a significant contributing property
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
in the Doylestown Historic District, listed by the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1985.
Collection
The museum has 3,000 works paintings, sculptures and works on paper from the Bucks County visual arts tradition, dating from Colonial times to the present. The collection includes works by painters of the Pennsylvania ImpressionistPennsylvania Impressionism
Pennsylvania Impressionism refers to an American Impressionist movement from the first half of the 20th century that was centered in and around Bucks County, Pennsylvania, particularly the area around the town of New Hope...
or New Hope school, American primitive painters, limners and modernists. Works by abstract expressionists are on long-term loan from the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, where James A. Michener and his wife, Mari, donated a major portion of their private art collection. In addition to the permanent exhibitions, the Museum presents 15 changing exhibitions each year. These exhibitions feature a broad spectrum of artistic styles and mediums.
Pennsylvania Impressionism
The museum has a collection of works by painters of the school of Pennsylvania ImpressionismPennsylvania Impressionism
Pennsylvania Impressionism refers to an American Impressionist movement from the first half of the 20th century that was centered in and around Bucks County, Pennsylvania, particularly the area around the town of New Hope...
, a movement from the first half of the 20th century centered around Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Bucks County, Pennsylvania
- Industry and commerce :The boroughs of Bristol and Morrisville were prominent industrial centers along the Northeast Corridor during World War II. Suburban development accelerated in Lower Bucks in the 1950s with the opening of Levittown, Pennsylvania, the second such "Levittown" designed by...
. Artists in this movement include John Fulton Folinsbee
John Fulton Folinsbee
John Fulton Folinsbee was an American landscape painter and member of the art colony at New Hope, Pennsylvania. He is best known today for his impressionist scenes of New Hope and Lambertville, New Jersey, particularly the factories, quarries, and canals along the Delaware River.Folinsbee was born...
, Walter Emerson Baum
Walter Emerson Baum
Walter Emerson Baum was an American artist and educator active in the Bucks and Lehigh County areas of Pennsylvania in the United States...
, George Sotter
George Sotter
George W. Sotter was an American painter best known for Impressionist-style works. He was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania but eventually made his name in Philadelphia. He is also known for his work in stained glass, some of which are still installed in numerous churches...
, Nate Dunn
Nate Dunn
Nathan "Nate" Dunn was an American painter born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Polish-Russian immigrant parents. Dunn was known for his artistic works throughout the northeastern United States.-Career:...
, Fern Coppedge
Fern Coppedge
Fern Isabel Coppedge was an American impressionist painter.Born in Decatur, Illinois, she spent much of her life in Pennsylvania where she was associated with the New Hope School of American Impressionism, the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Philadelphia Art Alliance,...
, Edward Redfield, Daniel Garber
Daniel Garber
Daniel Garber was an American Impressionist landscape painter and member of the art colony at New Hope, Pennsylvania. He is best known today for his large impressionist scenes of the New Hope area, in which he often depicted the Delaware River. He also painted figurative interior works and...
and Walter E. Schofield. Similar to the French impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
movement, this artwork is characterized by a plein air style interested in the quality of color, light, and the time of day.
Education
The Museum presents ongoing adult lecture series and workshops that feature art scholars and artists. There are also children’s classes and workshops for children preschool age through high school, inter-generational classes, and school and teacher programs planned in coordination with the area school districts, offered both in the Museum and on site at schools. An extensive archival collection that documents the work of regional artists, both past and present, is preserved and maintained by the Museum.The Bucks County Artists Database
The Museum has an online interactive database of artists from the Bucks County region, also available to be viewed on a kiosk in its Family Education Center. This database contains more than 1700 pages of information and more than 1300 images relating to 371 architects, craftspersons, musicians, painters, photographers, poets, printmakers, sculptors, stage and screen artists and fiction and non-fiction writers from the artistic tradition of New Hope and Bucks County. Some examples of artists featured are the Quaker painter Edward HicksEdward Hicks
Edward Hicks was an American folk painter, a distinguished minister of the Society of Friends, and he also became a Quaker icon because of his paintings.-Early life:...
(1780-1849), master woodworker George Nakashima
George Nakashima
George Katsutoshi NakashimaGeorge Katsutoshi NakashimaGeorge Katsutoshi Nakashima( was a Japanese-American woodworker, architect, and furniture maker who was one of the leading innovators of 20th century furniture design and a father of the American craft movement...
(1905-1990), sculptor Raymond Granville Barger (1906 - 2001), and authors and illustrators Stan and Jan Berenstain
Stan and Jan Berenstain
Stan and Jan Berenstain were American writers and illustrators best known for creating the children's book series the Berenstain Bears....
.
Permanent exhibits
- The LenfestH. F. Lenfest-Early Life and Career:He was born in Jacksonville, Florida, then later grew up in Scarsdale, New York and Hunterdon County, New Jersey. After attending Flemington High School, and graduating from Mercersburg Academy, Lenfest went on to receive his BA from Washington and Lee University in 1953 and...
Exhibition of Pennsylvania Impressionism - The George NakashimaGeorge NakashimaGeorge Katsutoshi NakashimaGeorge Katsutoshi NakashimaGeorge Katsutoshi Nakashima( was a Japanese-American woodworker, architect, and furniture maker who was one of the leading innovators of 20th century furniture design and a father of the American craft movement...
Reading Room - Daniel GarberDaniel GarberDaniel Garber was an American Impressionist landscape painter and member of the art colony at New Hope, Pennsylvania. He is best known today for his large impressionist scenes of the New Hope area, in which he often depicted the Delaware River. He also painted figurative interior works and...
's "A Wooded Watershed" (22-foot muralMuralA mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
painted for the Sesquicentennial ExpositionSesquicentennial ExpositionThe Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition of 1926 was a world's fair hosted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, and the 50th anniversary of the 1876 Centennial Exposition-History:The honor of hosting...
of 1926 held in Philadelphia) - "James A. Michener: A Living Legacy" - an exhibit dedicated to the Museum's namesake, James A. Michener. This exhibit recreates his Bucks County office where he wrote Tales of the South PacificTales of the South PacificTales of the South Pacific is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, which is a collection of sequentially related short stories about World War II, written by James A. Michener in 1946 and published in 1947...
. The exhibit features the desk, chair, typewriter, dictionary and other objects from the office in James A. Michener's Bucks County home where he lived and worked for more than 35 years.