Current Exhibition
Rhythms of Work
September 26, 2024 – December 29, 2024
Rhythms of Work brings together a selection of artifacts of Wharton Esherick’s studio practice—furniture works-in-progress, tools, and archives—to highlight Esherick’s approach to furniture making as fundamentally collaborative and open to modern technologies. The exhibition draws on a recent gift by Eric Hartshaw of tools and other objects that his father, woodworker and home builder Horace Hartshaw, had acquired from the Esherick Workshop.
Best known for his wood furnishings that marry function and expressiveness, Esherick innovated new rhythms of work as he crafted his sculptural designs. Hand wrought details are a signature element of Esherick’s functional artworks, yet he never idealized handicraft. Esherick embraced the speed and heft of power tools at the same time as he kept his axe blade sharp for the body-driven work of hewing sculptural forms. Esherick valued solitude yet was a prolific collaborator, drawing frequently on the skill sets of others to realize his singular creative vision.
Rhythms of Work opens September 26, 2024, and will be on view through December 29. The exhibition is in the Visitor Center, which is open during our tour hours. Please note, guests wishing to enter the Studio must make advance reservations for a tour.
“If it’s not fun, it’s not worth doing” –Wharton Esherick
The Wharton Esherick Museum celebrates and preserves the legacy of American artist Wharton Esherick, who worked primarily in wood to create furniture, furnishings, utensils, interiors, buildings and more.
A National Historic Landmark for Architecture, his hilltop studio/residence, with more than 300 of his works on exhibition, has been preserved much as it was when the artist lived and worked there.
We invite you to visit the Museum through a guided experience for which reservations are required.
Call for Entries-
31st Annual Juried Woodworking Exhibition
THEME: Renewal
DEADLINE: January 6, 2025
Across his career, Esherick took renewal seriously. After training as a painter he renewed his artistic identity time and again, finding inspiration enough to make everything from illustrated books to stage sets and costumes. He believed in renewed approaches to form, as seen in his refusal to make furniture that looked like anything previously on the market, instead creating objects that existed between function and sculpture. He believed in renewing materials, giving second lives to wooden objects like hammer handles and wagon wheels. Where others saw cast-off scraps, only useful for firewood, Esherick envisioned a renewal: the now-iconic floor of the Studio’s dining room, a sensual and organic mosaic. For the Wharton Esherick Museum’s 31st Annual Juried Woodworking Exhibition we invite you to think about renewal, and how it exists in your artistic life.
New Publication: The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick
We are excited to announce a new publication to accompany the upcoming exhibition, The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick. Published by Rizzoli, this 224 page book introduces Esherick’s visionary work to a broader public with essays by scholars Sarah Archer, Colin Fanning, Ann Glasscock, Holly Gore, and Emily Zilber and photographs by renowned architectural photographer Joshua McHugh. This book showcases seven decades of innovative woodwork and sculpture, fully contextualizing iconic works in Esherick’s own space and immersing readers in his creative world while capturing his unparalleled artistic contributions to the realms of furniture, architecture, prints, drawings, and sculpture.
Current Offsite Exhibition
The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick at Brandywine Museum of Art
October 13, 2024 – January 19, 2025
This exhibition explores the interdisciplinary creativity of Wharton Esherick (1887-1970), the famed American artist best known as the father of the Studio Furniture Movement.
The Crafted World brings selections from this rich and rarely loaned collection to a broader public, including many objects never before seen except in Esherick’s home and studio. Detailing the artist’s career from his early woodcut illustrations for books by members of the avant-garde literati to his revolutionary reimagining of furniture forms as organic sculpture, works will be presented in thematic vignettes that invite visitors into Esherick’s story and bring the essence of his creative world into the gallery.
“A complete expression of one man’s intensely personal fusion of fine craftsmanship with the wild flights of the imagination.”
“Fun, neat, creative, colorful, comfortable, smooth, flowing, exciting, cool, twisty, wavy, and extraordinary.”
Call for Entries-
Imprint 2025 High School Printmaking Competition
THEME: Renewal
DEADLINE: March 7, 2025
Imprint, our annual high school student printmaking exhibition, has been a cornerstone program for the Wharton Esherick Museum for a decade. Nearly a century ago, Wharton Esherick found his true calling through printmaking; Imprint encourages young people to explore this art form and make artistic statements through it for generations to come. We currently invite art classes from the Chester, Bucks, Delaware, Montgomery, Berks, Lehigh, and Philadelphia Counties to enter each year.
