Dive into past events, artist talks, and other collaborations to stay engaged no matter where you are.
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Spotlight Talk: Grime Be Gone- Cleaning Esherick’s 1966 Silo
Enjoy an exciting update on the Silo project since our last virtual conversation in April. As you may have heard, we engaged with the Philadelphia-based Heritage Conservation Collective to perform a cleaning of the 1966 Silo in order to determine the stability of the painted surface and locate all the problem areas in order to remediate our ongoing moisture issue. The treatment was more successful than anyone imagined. Over 60 years of buildup on the exterior of the Silo was removed to reveal the vibrant original colors of Esherick’s one-of-a-kind architectural artwork! We hosted a conversation about the project with WEM’s own Building Preservation Specialist, Andy Gustine and Andrew Fearon, a principle of Heritage Conservation who brought his skills and expertise to successfully treat this unique structure.
Spotlight Talk: Esherick on the Road!
Enjoy a virtual talk about ways Wharton Esherick’s work traveled during his lifetime and how they travel as museum objects today. With “The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick” exhibition opening at the Brandywine Museum of Art on October 13th,2024 – an exhibition that starts at Brandywine and will travel the country for the better part of a year – transportation has been on our minds! This exhibition includes a wide array of objects from our collection, many of which have not been seen outside the Studio walls since Esherick’s own lifetime. In this talk we share the behind-the-scenes tasks that prepare the collection to travel today and explore how (and where!) Esherick’s creations traveled during his lifetime, whether retracing these journeys from records and ephemera in our archives or taking a peek at prior exhibition stickers left on the back and underside of Esherick’s work.
Spotlight Talk: A Look Into the Margaret Esherick House
Enjoy a conversation with Paul Savidge and Dan Macey, the owners of the Margaret Esherick House (1961) in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. Along with the 1956 Workshop on our campus, the Margaret Esherick House is the only other example of a collaboration between Wharton Esherick and the world-renowned architect Louis Kahn. Commissioned by the artist’s niece, the house features an extraordinary kitchen designed and installed by Wharton Esherick. Thanks to the generosity of Paul and Dan, we are now offering tours of this unique home for the benefit of the Esherick Museum and the general public! We talked with Paul and Dan about what they’ve learned about this house during their time stewarding it, their award-winning efforts to restore and preserve this historic home and Esherick’s kitchen, as well as what it’s like to live in a Wharton Esherick/Louis Kahn collaboration!
Spotlight Talk: Record Keeping with Esherick
Enjoy a Spotlight talk to dive into a ledger book that documents some of Wharton Esherick’s earliest artworks. The ledger book spans from 1919 to the early 1930s and traces Esherick’s transformation from painter to printmaker to artist in wood! We explore some interesting materials inside, including Esherick’s own bronze powder recipes for his hand-carved frames, the earliest documented furniture he ever made, the places he exhibited early on in his career, and the handwriting inside that might give us a clue about who kept these records for Esherick. Plus, we take a peek at some of the other forms of record keeping that tracked Wharton Esherick’s prolific output.