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 Exhibition

Movement is Life

March 2, 2024 – June 2, 2024

Rhythms, Wharton Esherick, 1922.

Movement is Life explores modern dance as a context for the emergence of Wharton Esherick’s art. In the early 1920s, Esherick underwent an extraordinary transformation: he metamorphosed from an under-appreciated impressionist painter to a woodcarver whose dynamic modernist forms would carry him through an illustrious career. Esherick’s earliest woodworks—woodblock prints and decorative reliefs on frames and furniture—used swirling lines and rhythmic patterns to depict the natural world as alive. With his gouges, he rendered plants, animals, and human figures as pulsing with vital energies emanating from within them. Esherick struck this new direction at a time when he was involved with communities of women who practiced a form of modern dance called “rhythmics.” Broadly speaking, rhythmics was part of an early twentieth-century move toward using dance to revitalize world-worn bodies by reconnecting people with the rhythms of nature. Isadora Duncan, the most famous practitioner of this “natural dance,” gestured to the undulations of waves and breath, declaring “movement is life.”

The exhibition draws together a selection of woodblock prints, carvings, and archival photographs from the WEM collections, created during the five-year period, 1919-1924.


This installation will be on view in our Visitor Center, which is open during our tour hours. Please note, guests wishing to enter the Studio must make advance reservations for a tour.

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: Storytelling in Prints

Imprint 2023 is our 15th 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 ‘Storytelling.’ Esherick’s printmaking practice was grounded in storytelling, from the block-printed illustrations that helped tell the stories of other writers to prints centering his own life, family, and friends.

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!

The Lunchroom by Bella Meltzer of Abington Senior High School

Artist Opportunities

Open Call 30th Annual Juried Woodworking Exhibition
Open Call 30th Annual Juried Woodworking ExhibitionDeadline: January 5, 2024
Open Call for Imprint 2024
Open Call for Imprint 2024Deadline: February 16, 2024

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.