“PORTRAIT OF MY FATHER”: This painting by Henriette Wyeth will be on display at the Michener Museum come December 2017.  Thanks to a large grant awarded from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Michener will have a retrospective exhibition examining the work of the late husband-and-wife artists Henriette Wyeth and Peter Hurd.  

The James A. Michener Art Museum has received a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support the MAGICAL & REAL: Henriette Wyeth and Peter Hurd: A Retrospective exhibition with an accompanying catalogue. Co-organized with the Roswell Museum and Art Center in New Mexico, the exhibition will examine the work of husband-and-wife artists Henriette Wyeth (1907-1997) and Peter Hurd (1904-1984). The exhibition will open at the Michener Art Museum in December 2017.

“This will be one of the most exciting exhibitions we have organized at the Michener Art Museum, and the catalogue will allow us to share with our audiences an even deeper story of these remarkably talented artists who, despite the well-known Wyeth name, remain largely unknown,” said Kirsten M. Jensen, Ph.D., the Michener Art Museum’s Gerry & Marguerite Lenfest Chief Curator. “We are very grateful to the NEA for the funding to make it possible.”

MAGICAL & REAL: Henriette Wyeth and Peter Hurd: A Retrospective will include approximately 80 paintings, and will be augmented by video and audio recordings that document the artists’ lives and careers. Co-curated by Jensen and Sara Woodbury, curator of collections and exhibitions at the Roswell Museum and Art Center, the exhibition will be accompanied by a richly illustrated scholarly catalogue, with essays by Jensen and Woodbury, and additional essays by Leo G. Mazow (University of Arkansas) and Melissa Renn (Harvard University). The exhibition will be on view at the Michener from December 2, 2017 to March 25, 2018 and will then travel to Roswell, where it will be on view from April 20 to August 12, 2018.

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu has approved more than $82 million to fund local arts projects and partnerships in the NEA’s second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2016. The Art Works category supports the creation of work and presentation of both new and existing work, lifelong learning in the arts, and public engagement with the arts through 13 arts disciplines or fields.

“The arts are all around us, enhancing our lives in ways both subtle and obvious, expected and unexpected,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “Supporting projects like this one from the Michener Art Museum offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day.”

The Michener Art Museum is located at 138 South Pine St., Doylestown, Pa. It is open Tuesday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.; Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; and Sunday, noon – 5:00 p.m.

For more information, visit MichenerArtMuseum.org or call (215) 340-9800.

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