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Imprint 2024 Virtual Reception: Rhythms
We celebrated Imprint 2024, WEM’s 16th annual high school printmaking competition! Enjoy a discussion about a selection of Esherick prints that exemplify his unique ability to capture movement and rhythm in his work. From Rhythms (1922), to The Hammersmen (1924), Esherick was truly masterful at creating vibrant, rhythmic worlds with his prints. Alongside Esherick’s prints we heard remarks from our guest jurors, Katie Garth and Nikki Gilliam, and took a look at a few of our Imprint prizewinners for the unique ways these students took on the theme of rhythms in their own works! We were even lucky enough to hear from some of our prizewinning artists!
Spotlight Talk: Wharton Esherick, Ruth Doing, and Rhythms
In celebration of the exhibition, Movement is Life, now on view at the Wharton Esherick Museum, we enjoyed highlighting Esherick’s relationship with dancer Ruth Doing, a friend and an early supporter of his work. This 20-minute program explores the flow of ideas between modern dance, intentional living, and graphic arts in the communities of women that developed around teaching a form of modern dance called “rhythmics.” Along the way, we looked at some of Esherick’s early woodcarvings, in particular, his iconic woodblock print of 1923, Rhythms.
Spotlight Talk: Unpacking Esherick’s Library
Enjoy a chat in which we take a dive into Esherick’s richly stocked library! Esherick was friends with a number of notable modernist writers such as Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Ford Maddox Ford, and Jean Toomer. Esherick also partook in modernist literary circles through his work with the Centaur Press in Philadelphia and communities like Fairhope, Alabama. Esherick’s book collection reflects his tastes, interests, and the times he lived. What books was Esherick collecting, reading, marking up, and lending out? How did the books Esherick surrounded himself with inform his life and work? In this 20-minute program we crack a few spines to peek into particular books, and take a wider scope to consider the subjects and types of writing represented in the artist’s collection.
Spotlight Talk: Up Close with Esherick’s 1927 Drop Leaf Desk
We took a close look (and we mean a very close look) at Wharton Esherick’s 1927 Drop Leaf Desk. This January, our staff did a practice run of dismantling this iconic piece before sending it out for The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick exhibition at the Brandywine Museum of Art this fall. Taking a piece of furniture apart never fails to breathe new life into it and our understanding of its creation – and its maker. In our talk, we’ll explore our findings from this deep dive as well as the conservation and cleaning needed to prepare the desk to travel. We’re excited about what we learned and what stories this piece had to tell! Esherick’s Drop Leaf Desk is one of the artist’s earliest pieces of large scale furniture, and one of the last that features intricate surface carvings. With this surface carving, the piece exhibits a fascinating link to Esherick’s practice of carving and printing woodblocks, and echoes its intended use by Esherick to store materials such as woodblocks, paper, and prints.