Featured Image: Artist of paintings and sculptures are listed below, Photo credits to Marco Calderon and the Allentown Art Museum.
Hear Harry Bertoia’s sound sculptures during “Friends and Family Days” in December
Allentown, PA – Celebrate the art and culture of the region during Friends and Family Days on December 23 and December 30 at the Allentown Art Museum! On those two Saturdays, Museum members can bring along as many friends and family as they’d like and all receive free admission to the galleries.
The holiday season is the perfect time to view the stately paintings in the special exhibition The Poetry of Nature: Hudson River School Landscapes from the New-York Historical Society, with a guided tour being offered at 2 p.m. on both Saturdays. Museum staff will be on hand all weekend, Saturdays and Sundays, to oversee ArtVentures, the free hands-on art making program for families.
The galleries and the Museum Shop will be open on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve regular hours, noon-4 p.m., and admission is free on Sundays thanks to generous support from the Gadomski Foundation and the Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust. The Café will be closed both weekends.
In addition to experiencing The Poetry of Nature before it closes on December 31, visitors can see works by important regional artists. For example, they can hear the sounds of nature reverberate through Trexler Hall as Harry Bertoia’s renowned sound sculptures set a new tone for the holidays. In the Lehigh Valley, we share a history of art and artists, crafts and design, and the Allentown Art Museum has been cultivating collections and examples of world-renowned artists like Bertoia who have lived and worked in the area.
Reverberations: Sound Sculptures by Harry Bertoia
See and hear the work of Harry Bertoia (1915–1978), an Italian-born painter and sculptor who worked out of a barn in Bally, PA, a small rural community in the western Lehigh County. In 1968–1969 he remodeled the space in Bally to accommodate a sound studio environment for concerts, recordings and his sculptures.
“Harry Bertoia was our neighbor,” says Pam Singer, who grew up in Bally and remembers Bertoia’s studio, the towering sculptures and his musical creations in a studio on Route 100.
“My sister and I used to bicycle down and watch him build these metal things in his warehouse. He’d be welding, and he’d take the time to talk to us. We enjoyed watching him. We’d see some of his works, like the big water fountain in Boyertown, and we’d say, ‘Oh, that’s what Harry did!’”
Bertoia would go on to make about 1,200 sound sculptures during the 1960s and 1970s.
Ten of Bertoia’s sound sculptures are on display in the Museum’s Trexler Hall until January 7, 2018. Just ask, and a docent or guard will gently set the sound sculptures in motion. And you can listen to an excerpt of Visible Music for Bertoia Sculptures and Orchestra by Dr. Douglas Ovens performed by the Allentown Symphony Orchestra.
Rhythm and Movement: Keith Haring
Keith Haring (1958–1990) was born in Reading, PA, raised in Kutztown and developed a love for drawing at an early age. His fanciful works are on display in the Museum’s Butz Gallery, where his popular painting Andy Mouse has been swapped out for another of Haring’s works. The silkscreened pulsing figures in Haring’s Growing are part of an exhibit of contemporary art that captures the concepts of optical illusion in pattern and motion and displays diverse perspectives on rhythm and movement. Rhythm and Movement is on display until March 25, 2018.
Franz Kline’s Lehighton: Now part of the Permanent Collection
Earlier this year, the Museum unveiled the permanent installation of Franz Kline’s Lehighton, an oil painting originally commissioned in 1945 by the American Legion Post 314 in Lehighton.
Kline (1910–1962) lived in Lehighton as a teenager with his mother and stepfather who worked for the railroad. He studied art in Boston and London and joined the Abstract Expressionist movement, but his Pennsylvania experiences continued to inspire his work long after he moved away. The Allentown Art Museum acquired and restored the huge mural that depicts the landscape, sweeping trains and rows of houses in Lehighton at the time. A video in Trexler Gallery provides a multimedia experience of how the work was restored.
So, come with family and friends to enjoy the art and recount the exciting history of artists in the greater Lehigh Valley during the holiday season.
The Allentown Art Museum is open Wednesday–Saturday 11 a.m.–4 p.m., Sunday noon–4 p.m., and on Sundays there’s free admission, a 2 p.m. guided tour and children’s ArtVentures programming from 12:30-3:30 p.m. The Museum Store is open Tuesday–Saturday 11am–4pm and on Sunday noon–4 p.m., including Christmas and New Years Eves.
For more information about the Allentown Art Museum check our website, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. If you have a question about our programming email us at askus@allentownartmuseum.org.
Information and images provided to TVL by:
Angela Zanelli
VP Development and Communications
Allentown Art Museum
