Come to the Moorestown Library on Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. for a lecture from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum Education department on their upcoming exhibition: “The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement 1887–1920.”
Focused on the period 1887–1920, “The Artist’s Garden” exhibition and catalogue will tell the story of American Impressionist artists and the growing popularity of gardening as a middle-class leisure pursuit at the turn of the 20th-century, bringing together paintings, sculpture, books and stained glass.
“The Artist’s Garden” will be organized around themes of American artists/European gardens; the Lady in the Garden, Leisure and Labor in the American Garden; the Urban Garden: the Artist’s Garden; and the Garden in Winter/Garden at Rest.
Among the artists whose works will be included are: Hugh Henry Breckinridge, Cecilia Beaux, William Merritt Chase, Charles C. Curran, Maria Oakey Dewing, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Daniel Garber, Philip Leslie Hale, Childe Hassam, Violet Oakley, Jane Peterson, Jessie Wilcox Smith, John H. Twachtman, Robert W. Vonnoh and J. Alden Weir.
The exhibition and publication will include representations of gardens across both the United States and Europe, with special emphasis on the importance of the Philadelphia area, which served as the originator of the Colonial Revival Garden movement with the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. Moreover, the Philadelphia area was the center of the publishing industry in the early 20th century, which led to the creation of magazines aimed at middle class suburban gardeners like “House and Garden” (founded in 1901 in Philadelphia). Philadelphia was also the city that founded the Garden Club of America in 1913.
The lecture is free but registration is required. Register online today at www.moorestown.lib.nj.us.
