The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick Makes Its Way to Wisconsin

The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick on view at the Chazen Museum of Art. Image courtesy of the Chazen Museum of Art.

The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick is officially on the second leg of its three-venue tour! The exhibition opened this month at the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, bringing more than 70 works by Wharton Esherick — many of which have never been seen outside the Studio walls — to this vibrant city. The exhibition is organized into thematic vignettes: Rural and Urban, Pattern Recognition, Bodies in Space, and The Way Things Grow. Rather that offer a single timeline, these themes allow viewers to “time travel” across different periods of Esherick’s creative life, and highlight the ways in which the artist’s deepest interests wove through new forms.

We admit we can’t stop talking about how incredible this exhibition is, but don’t take our word for it! In a recent article for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Julia Shipley describes how “The exhibit and accompanying catalog published by Rizzoli Electa spotlights Esherick’s command of multiple mediums — including paintings, woodcarvings, woodblock prints, and sculpture — all of which gesture toward Esherick’s lifelong interest and engagement with other arts — such as dance, literature, and music.”

In her thoughtful piece, Shipley reflects on the way in which Esherick’s enduring impact on the fields of art, architecture, craft, and a design have flown a bit under the radar — a fact that we continue to change through our efforts at WEM. Shipley notes, “As commercially manufactured items increasingly replaced handcrafted works, Esherick steadfastly resisted mass production. In his essay, “I Build a Building, or He Helps Me Build a Building,” Esherick writes: “Tenderness in a tough hand … Fingers close together but the whole hand loose and slightly arched.” The remarks hearken the grace and strength of Esherick’s work, which has eluded notoriety, despite being featured at the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair and exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, and at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts for a 1958-59 retrospective of his work in New York.”

Through The Crafted World exhibition, we continue to grow Esherick’s presence in the world. Over the course of this exhibition, on view at all three venues (the Brandywine Museum of Art, the Chazen, and finally the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, OH), it is estimated that around 120,000 guests will experience Esherick’s work. We are thrilled to think of the thousands of people seeing Eshrick’s work for the first time and hope they take away a spark of joy and call to live creatively in their own lives.