PHILADELPHIA – Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia’s premier institution for interpreting the art and culture of the Philadelphia region, is currently presenting two major exhibitions exploring modernist and contemporary art of Philadelphia. Innumerable artists of our time have used the language of abstraction – color, line, texture, scale, and form – to express the ideas and emotions of life’s experiences. The exhibitions Flirting with Abstraction and Mary G.L. Hood and Philadelphia Modernism, on view through January 8, 2012, demonstrate the great richness of abstract painting by the artists of Philadelphia.

“Together, these exhibitions offer a unique experience to enjoy the story of modern painting as it evolved in Philadelphia from the early twentieth century right up to the present day,” says William R. Valerio, the Patricia Van Burgh Allison Director and CEO of Woodmere Art Museum. “There are many important continuities and generational relationships across the two exhibitions, and it’s through exhibitions like these that we start to understand that Philadelphia’s art has a distinct history that needs to be explored in all its complexity and fullness.”

Exhibition: Flirting with Abstraction: Modernist and Contemporary Art of Philadelphia and the Promised Gift of Karen Segal and Woodmere’s Collection

The exhibition Flirting with Abstraction: Modernist and Contemporary Art of Philadelphia and the Promised Gift of Karen Segal and Woodmere’s Collection is anchored by fine examples of abstract painting and sculpture from Woodmere’s permanent collection, alongside selections from the transformative promised gift of Chestnut Hill artist and collector, Karen Segal.

Flirting with Abstraction brings together some seventy-five works by Philadelphia artists. Artists whose works are represented in both Segal’s collection and that of Woodmere include Quita Brodhead, Jan Baltzell, Jacqueline Cotter, Rose Naftulin, Jane Piper, Bill Scott, Stuart Shils, Doris Staffel, Ken Kewley, and Karen Segal herself. The paintings from Segal’s collection bring previously unimagined depth to the Museum’s holdings of twentieth- and twenty-first century art.

Exhibition: Mary G.L. Hood and Philadelphia Modernism

Woodmere’s second major exhibition of the fall, Mary G.L. Hood and Philadelphia Modernism, is a career retrospective of the work of Mary G. L. Hood (1886–1967), a modernist painter of Philadelphia who painted both still life and landscape with a bold color palette and lyrical sensibility with pictorial form.

Women artists were central to the evolution of modern art in twentieth-century Philadelphia. This exhibition of some seventy-five paintings also features work by Hood’s daughter, Agnes Hood Miller (1908–1967), and other artists who similarly found their voices amid the convergence of modernist forces in the region.

Both Mary G.L. Hood and Agnes Hood Miller were students of Philadelphia’s great modernist, Arthur B. Carles. On display in the exhibition is Carles’ Abstract Bouquet, a large, daring, and complex still life and recent acquisition to the Museum. The painting has not been exhibited publically since 1940. Abstract Bouquet is a reflection of the French modernism and Cubism Carles experienced while traveling abroad, in the late 1930s in his studio on Evergreen Avenue in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, where Woodmere Art Museum is also located.

Mary G.L. Hood and Philadelphia Modernismdemonstrates the relationships that Hood and Hood Miller enjoyed with their teachers and mentors through the inclusion of works by Henry McCarter, Hugh Breckenridge and Charles Ward, in addition to Carles. Also included are works by other modernist painters of their time, such as Morris Blackburn, Leon Kelly, Betty Hubbard, Vera White, Fern Coppedge and Jean Knox Chambers. The exhibition offers a unique view of modern painting as it evolved in Philadelphia in the middle decades of the twentieth century.

Woodmere Art Museum is located at 9201 Germantown Avenue. Admission to special exhibitions is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, and FREE for students and children; Exhibitions in the Founder’s Gallery and Helen Millard Children’s Gallery are FREE. Museum hours are: Tuesday through Thursday 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. –8:45 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.–6 p.m., and Sunday 10 a.m.–5 p.m. For visitor information, visit www.woodmereartmuseum.orgor call (215) 247-0476.

Image Credits

From the Exhibition: Flirting with Abstraction: Modernist and Contemporary Art of Philadelphia and the Promised Gift of Karen Segal and Woodmere’s Collection

1. Jacqueline Cotter (born 1921)
“San Miguel,” 1992, Pencil over oil on Mylar, (we don’t have the dimensions for it yet!)
Collection of Karen Segal

From the Exhibition: Mary G. L. Hood and Philadelphia Modernism

2. Mary G.L. Hood (1886-1967)
[Untitled], undated, oil on canvas, 12 x 10 in.
Collection of Sarah Hood Bodine

3. Arthur B. Carles (1882-1952), Abstract Bouquet, 1939, oil on canvas, 33 ½ x 39 ½ in.