Through exhibitions, programs and partnerships we strive to be an active community resource, connecting contemporary audiences to Esherick’s brilliant creations and the beauty of the everyday.
Upcoming Events
Current Installation
Art, Work, and Everyday Life: A New Look at the Esherick Studio
While several of Esherick’s works travel with The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick, we are excited to offer visitors a chance to experience the Studio space in a new way with the installation of Art, Work, and Everyday Life: A New Look at the Esherick Studio. With over 70 Esherick works are on the road, we have the unique opportunity to showcase rarely seen objects from our collection and beyond. These new displays highlight both the artworks and the ephemera of Esherick’s daily life — from work tables and easels to handmade ceramic dishes — and reintroduce the Studio as an ever-changing space of creative activity. Learn more about the new Studio setup here!
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.
Offsite Exhibition
The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick at Brandywine Museum of Art
October 12, 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.
Esherick considered his hillside home and studio, now the Wharton Esherick Museum (WEM), the best representation of his iconoclastic vision, calling it “an autobiography in three dimensions.” Built between 1926 and 1966, his unconventional escape on the verdant slopes of Valley Forge Mountain houses almost 3000 iconic works of art from across Esherick’s seven decades of artistic practice.
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.
This exhibition will be on view at the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, PA
Off the Shelf: Wharton Esherick Museum Book Club
Calling all Esherick fans and readers! Off the Shelf is an Esherick-like twist on the classic book club! It provides the opportunity for bookworms, Esherick fans, and local community members alike to explore Wharton Esherick’s legacy through the artist’s own richly stocked bookshelves, as well as recently published books that illuminate Esherick’s artistic networks and enduring legacy.
Meetings are once a month and take place in Esherick’s 1956 Workshop and features an exclusive look into WEM’s special collections and archives to explore materials related to the month’s book. Discussions will be moderated by friend of the museum, WEM board member, and Director of West Chester University Special Collections, Ron McColl, and will feature occasional guest specialists.
Imprint: Rhythms
Imprint 2024 is our 16th annual high school print competition and exhibition! This online exhibition represents a juried selection of works submitted by high school students from across Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lehigh, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties.
The Imprint program encourages new generations of young artists in the medium of relief printmaking. For this year’s Imprint exhibition we introduced the theme of ‘Rhythms.’ Much of Esherick’s creative practice was shaped by the actors and dancers who surrounded him. He consistently found a way to incorporate that graceful movement into his work, from the Rhythms(1922) woodcut print to his Spiral Library Ladder (1969), and beyond!
Recognizing the pivotal role that printmaking played in Esherick’s life, we are delighted to once again highlight young artists who represent the future of this powerful medium, with Imprint. We were once again astounded by the skill and creativity of the submissions and send a huge thank you to all the art teachers and students who shared their work with us!
Geocentrism by Brandon Bacordo of Abington Senior High School
Everything Else
Center for Creative Works Residency
In April of 2018, the Wharton Esherick Museum launched a new partnership with the Center for Creative Works, an art studio focusing on developing creative workplace potential and cultural identity for people with intellectual disabilities. During the residency, a dedicated group of artists from CCW are on site weekly to draw inspiration from Esherick’s work through observation, sketching, model-making and discussion. With guidance from furniture makers and woodworking instructors the resident CCW artists refine their designs and techniques at the CCW woodshop and facilities in Wynnewood.
Philly Touch Tours
With support from the National Endowment for the Arts and other generous funders, the Wharton Esherick Museum has engaged Philly Touch Tours to design, develop and host accessible touch experiences for people with vision loss. Philly Touch Tours LLC, founded in 2015, provides accessibility consulting and touch tour program design for museums and cultural institutions and Disability Awareness and Sensitivity Training for museum and cultural institution staff. Philly Touch Tours will, in collaboration with the Museum, design and facilitate touch tours, provide training for Museum staff and volunteers on leading tours for individuals with vision loss and produce Braille and large print materials. The program aims to inspire curiosity and facilitate a meaningful experience for people with vision loss, while disseminating information about The Wharton Esherick Museum’s history, its collection and its active engagement with the public.
CraftNOW
Launched in 2014, CraftNOW Philadelphia unites the leading institutions and artists of Philadelphia’s craft community in a celebration of the city’s rich legacy of craft, its internationally-recognized contemporary craft scene, and its important role as an incubator for arts based in wood, clay, fiber, metal and glass. Through both creating and spotlighting events during the week of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, CraftNOW invites locals and visitors alike to explore Philadelphia’s innovations in the world of the handmade.
The Wharton Esherick Museum is a proud member of the consortium of individuals, galleries, museums, universities, retailers, and civic organizations who participate in CraftNOW each November. For details on CraftNOW events visit our event calendar.