There are small museums, and big museums, and mega-museums. The Philadelphia Museum of Art belongs in that last group both for the reach of its collections and the size of its space.
Ironically, it’s probably best-known to the public at large for neither: its steps featured in the Rocky movies, and the world comes to run up and down the steps, imitating Sylvester Stallone’s character.
I emulated him, too, but in slower motion: On a hot morning I climbed the whole damn thing, headed for what logically seemed to be the main entrance, only to be confronted at the top with evidence that wasn’t true. Later, when I complained inside, I was told that there is supposed to be a sign at the bottom as well.
And there’s a reason, it turns out, that it’s no longer the main entrance; the huge museum, which opened in 1928, is growing, from the inside. A series of changes directed by star architect Frank Gehry have created nearly 100,000 square feet of new public space and created a new main entrance on the north side of the building. It also includes new exhibition space under the famous stairs.
The north entrance leads to an incredibly high vaulted corridor that runs the length of the museum, and was for years closed to the public and used for storage and administration. Now it leads to new spaces, including the Williams Forum, with its Gehry staircase and access to future retail and dining space.
Unlike most Gehry projects, there’s nothing on the outside that would show his mark on the building. Gehry himself has said “When it’s done, people coming to this museum will have an experience that’s as big as Bilbao. It won’t be apparent from the outside, but it will knock their socks off inside.”
And the existing interior and exterior are impressive indeed. The museum opened in 1928 on the site of the city’s former main reservoir (think deep excavation already in place), replacing a building that was put up for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. It was an unusual collaboration between two architects in the same firm; Howell Lewis Shay designed the ground plan and massing, while Julian Abele, the first African-American graduate of the University of Pennsylvania architecture school designed the facades and materials.
Fooled me: I stood and waited, ready to be amazed by a 20-foot-high elevator. I should have known it was a trick!
Philadelphia’s collections are global and wide-ranging, from ancient to contemporary, and not above a few surprises for even a frequent gallery-goer. Medieval armor and religious structures, that you expect. But I was startled to learn that Edward Lear, the nonsense poet of The Owl and the Pussycat was well-known in his time as an illustrator. Mahabalipooram, below, shows a temple in Madras he visited in the 1870s.
Another surprise for me was this ‘pen work’ as its creator called it. Hendrick Goltzius was a 16th century Dutch printmaker who turned to oils, and then created works like this that use both drawing pen and touches of color, laid over a foundation of bluish gray paint. This one carries the title ‘Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus Would Freeze.’
The museum was founded with the idea that it would not only display fine art but craftsmanship and industrial art; it was home to a school of industrial art for many years, which make pieces like this 16th century door from an Austrian manor house fit right in. Incidentally, the craftsman’s name was Urban Holzwurm, which translates to ‘wood worm.’
A care for context shows in many of the museum’s exhibit groupings. It has quite a few transplanted rooms from settings as diverse as manor houses, a Shaker village and a Pennsylvania German farmhouse.
With each come more detailed exhibits of related objects and art; for instance, these tea services, displayed in an English room, are accompanied by an explanatory essay on the importance that tea-drinking took on in 17th and 18th century social contexts.
Also on hand, some rather quirky room decor. My wife used to point at things like that as we wandered and tell me “Bring that home and you’re dead to me.”
No museum is complete without a popular selection of Van Gogh paintings. Fortunately, as museum-goers we get the real ones, the ones that don’t swerve and curve and swirl on some ‘immersive’ warehouse wall. (Steps off soapbox and apologizes for growling.)
And now for something completely different. The two pieces above are part of a special exhibition of work by African-American artist Senga Nengudi, who has worked in a variety of media including works that combine found objects and choreographed performance.
Just because they caught my eye: Ruined Bridge with Figures by Hubert Robert and Still Life with Flowers, Shells, a Shark’s Head and Petrifications (as much for the title as for the picture, perhaps) by Antoine Berjon, an 19th century French painter.
Thomas Eakins, an important figure in Philadelphia’s art history, is responsible for The Concert Singer, his first full-length portrait. The model was the singer Weda Cook, a friend of Eakins, who had her pose for hours singing the same few notes from the oratorio Elijah. The notes are inscribed on the frame.
Three more portraits in varying styles. Above, Man in Cafe by Juan Gris
Right, The Poet by Marc Chagall
Below, Head of a Woman by Pablo Picasso
From an exhibit of art using unusual media and techniques: Cai Guo-Qiang copied postage stamps showing peonies and the Great Wall of China, and set off mini-explosions of gunpowder on the panes between them.
This 1928 piece is by American artist Wanda Gag, who used black ink and traces of graphite to turn a paper shopping bag, complete with handle into The Cobbler’s Cat.
And here’s a ‘Cardbird’ by pop artist Robert Rauschenburg. This is number five in a series of seven. Despite appearances, this is not made of scrap cardboard; Rauschenburg collected a variety of boxes from an alley behind a printshop and then painstakingly recreated the creases, tears and markings as screenprints. Honestly, were you more impressed with that than when you thought he made it from scraps?
In a far more somber mood, but just as experimental in its materials is this evocation by Horace Pippin of his experiences in World War I. A soldier in the segregated 369th Infantry, he suffered severe wounds to his right arm; after the war he turned to art for physical rehabilitation, at first using his left hand to move his right.
And finally, two heart-tugging portraits, one, Stevedore, by the relatively-unknown Julius Bloch, noted for treating working class subjects with the solemnity others reserved for the wealthy, and the other a rare portrait by Philip Guston from 1940, shortly before he plunged into abstraction.
I had planned about four hours to visit the museum; I had to leave after six to catch a train home to New York. And I didn’t feel done.
The Museum also operates the nearby Rodin Museum and several annexes in Fairmount Park, including two historic houses.
