Join us for a talk led by Holly Gore, WEM’s Director of Interpretation and Associate Curator, that explores the 1930s as a decade when Wharton Esherick created some of his most innovative works of sculptural furniture. The talk builds on our current exhibition, Voyage of Renewal: Wharton Esherick in Germany and Scandinavia, which brings together artworks and ephemera stemming from Wharton Esherick’s travels in Europe during the summer of 1931, a time of great personal renewal for the artist. Drawing on WEM’s art and archival collections, the exhibition features one of Esherick’s seven travel sketchbooks completed during the journey, historic photographs, souvenir postcards purchased along the way, as well as woodblock prints and a printed textile made upon his return to Pennsylvania.

What came next for Wharton Esherick? What followed this voyage of renewal? In his furniture designs, Esherick’s work becomes strikingly expressionistic and sculptural—a direction exemplified in his tour-de-force Corner Desk (1931) made for Helene Fischer, who funded Esherick’s European excursion. The lecture will explore this work and other sculptural furnishings and interiors of the 1930s, along with the contexts that inspired them. After the talk, visitors are welcome to peruse one of Esherick’s travel sketchbooks and other material alongside WEM staff and to head into the Esherick Studio for a close look at the Work Table for Hannah Weil (1931), a piece that Esherick created on his European voyage, and which is on loan to WEM from a private collection.

Schedule:

11:00-12:00PM Exhibition Talk

12:00-12:30PM Studio visit and Special Collections in Workshop

Tickets:

$40 per person

$30 for WEM members – Join or renew today to purchase your ticket at this special price!

Pictured above:
Bok House Staircase, Wharton Esherick, 1938.