Displaying items by tag: newark museum

Museums are increasingly displaying jewelry as a form of wearable art in its own right, sometimes with the conversation centering around the innovative use of materials in alternative ways.

“Jewelry is more than just you wear to complement your clothes. If you pick good jewelry, it’s like wearing a piece of art,” says Ulysses Dietz, curator of the exhibition, titled "From Pearls to Platinum to Plastic," opening at the Newark Museum in June.

The national garden movement and, in particular, artists’ interest in gardens, has deep roots in Philadelphia, beginning with William Penn’s founding of his green and pleasant town in the seventeenth century and John Bartram’s establishing his botanical garden in 1728. In the early nineteenth century, artist Charles Wilson Peale retired to the cultivation of his garden at Belfield, and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society was founded (in 1827), two years later hosting its first flower show. Interest gained momentum with the Colonial Revival movement, itself an outcome of Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition, and continued into the twentieth century.1 In her popular 1901 Colonial Revival-inspired publication Old Time Gardens, Alice Morse Earle wrote of Philadelphia: “There floriculture reached by the time of the Revolution a very high point, and many exquisite gardens bore ample testimony to the ‘pride of life,’ as well as to the good taste and love of flowers of Philadelphia Friends.” 2

Horticultural obsession also permeated the Philadelphia art scene. One of the most iconic conjunctions of art and the garden is the commissioning from Maxfield Parrish and Tiffany Studios of the fabulous Dream Garden (1913–1915, installed 1916) for the Curtis Building. The work was commissioned by Edward W. Bok (1863–1930), the head of Curtis Publishing, the influential publisher of Ladies Home Journal for the company’s new headquarters in Philadelphia.

Visit InCollect.com to read more about American Impressionism and the Garden Movement.

“American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell” is currently on view at the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey. The sweeping exhibition, which is organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, focuses on the work of the widely popular 20th century painter and illustrator, Norman Rockwell. Rockwell is best known for his archetypical portrayals of American life as well as his cover illustrations for “The Saturday Evening Post” magazine.

“American Chronicles” is a traveling exhibition that presents 50 original Rockwell paintings as well as the 323 covers he created for “The Saturday Evening Post.” The show features some of Rockwell’s most recognized images including “Triple Self-Portrait,” “Girl at Mirror,” and “Going and Coming” as well as portraits of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. The exhibition includes a number of works from Rockwell’s archives such as preliminary sketches, color studies, photographs, letters, manuscripts, and detailed drawings.

“American Chronicles” offers visitors a glimpse into Rockwell’s artistic process and illustrates how he came to be the visual interpreter of day-to-day life in post-World War II America. The exhibition will remain on view at the Newark Museum through May 26, 2014. It will then travel to the Fondazione Roma-Arte Musei in Rome (November 10, 2014-February 8, 2014) and the Brigham Young University Museum of Art in Provo, Utah (November 19, 2015-February 13, 2016).