On Tuesday I was invited to an early preview of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s new summer destination for kids and their adults, Art Splash. The Art Splash season will run from June 28th through September 2. There will be five exhibitions of illustration, fashion, photography and design and each exhibit is interactive and geared towards family fun.
During the visit I was able to attend All Dressed Up: Fashions for Children and Their Families. This exhibit runs through December 1st and explores how evolving concepts of childhood shaped garments from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. This exhibit is interactive with child-friendly labels and a large drawing table to create fashions of your own.
I also got to see CandyCoated Wonderland an exhibit created by local artist Candy Coated (Candy Depew). The museum describes CandyCoated Wonderland as a distinctively modern and whimsical make-believe setting for selections from the Museum’s extensive collection of children’s fancy dress costumes. The artist‘s signature ceramic wall gems, vibrant silk-screened fabrics, and vinyl decals provide a delightful background for a “candy-coated” narrative that features elaborately dressed characters from fairy tales and nursery rhymes as well as children’s mannequins in the traditional dress of many lands.
This display is available now until November 17.
I was also given a sneak peek of Design for the Modern Child (May 25–October 14) and met the curator This exhibit will showcase seventy years of innovative international design in toys, furniture, and other objects, many on view for the first time in the United States. Child’s play meets the avant-garde in works like Marie-Louise Groot Kormelink’s charming Dutch rowhouse wardrobes, Sirch’s contemporary-style dollhouse, and Josefine Bentzen and Charlotte Skak’s Kitchen Kids, prototypes of Danish kitchen tools for children.
Other exhibits during Art Splash will include:
Witness: The Art of Jerry Pinkney (June 28–September 22) will present a comprehensive look at five decades of work by the celebrated Philadelphia-born illustrator, known for his spellbinding visual narratives that bring to life classic children’s literature, African folk tales, and trailblazing explorations of the American story. Over one hundred images—from early designs for record albums, watercolors, and pencil commissions of African American historic sites and subjects to luminous illustrations from his award-winning children’s books—trace Pinkney’s artistic journey as one of the United States’ finest visual storytellers.
Witness: The Art of Jerry Pinkney was organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Family Portrait (June 8–November 10) will look at the many ways photographers portray families and spans the history of the medium, from early daguerreotypes to iconic works by Diane Arbus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paul Strand, and contemporary photographs from Collier Schorr and Tina Barney. The centerpiece is a selection of pages from the mid-1850s family album of British amateur photographers Lucy and Charlotte Bridgeman. The album has never before been exhibited and is a highlight of the Museum’s photographic holdings.
Art Splash Activities
The light-filled atrium of the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building will be the focal point for family-friendly activities and events. Visitors will encounter a fourteen-foot-tall, climbable play structure designed by Australian architects Bennett and Trimble, and local artists will lead family-friendly art workshops in Splash Studio, where families can draw, sketch, and sculpt together, inspired by the work in the adjacent galleries.
Daily children’s activities will feature gallery explorations, art-themed story hours, and pop-up mini-tours by Museum educators. Each week Art Splash will explore a new theme, from “Forts and Crawly Places” to “Splashy Fashion and Cool Costumes” to “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.” Emily Schreiner, Associate Curator of Education for Family and Community Learning, said, “Art Splash is a new adventure for the Museum in which our curators and educators worked hand in hand to plan a summer long series that would be an imaginative and educational experience for the whole family. It is an opportunity for families that already know and love the Museum to visit often, and an incentive for those who have not come before to discover all the exciting things that the Museum has to offer.”
Want to see more pictures?
Check out my Google+ album.
If you go:
ADMISSION
Admission to Art Splash exhibitions and all programming is free for children under 12, $10 for adults.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
A full schedule of daily family-friendly programs is available on the Museum’s website at philamuseum.org/artsplash.
EXHIBITION HOURS
Tuesday–Sunday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. The exhibition will be closed July 4 and open during normal hours on Labor Day.
SPONSORSHIP FOR Art Splash:
Art Splash is presented by PNC Arts Alive. Leadership support is provided by Constance and Sankey Williams with additional generous support by The Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Victory Foundation, Lois G. and Julian A. Brodsky, Jane C. Davis, Lynne and Harold Honickman, Mrs. Eugene W. Jackson, Mr. and Mrs. John M. Thalheimer, and gifts in honor of Carleigh Marie Jones. Cubby House fabrication courtesy of RockTen. In-kind printing support provided by CRW Graphics.
Can’t make it to the Museum? Visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art online through one of their social media sites.
Check out some of the beautiful art on Instagram: @philamuseum
Follow them on Twitter: @philamuseum
Like them on Facebook: www.facebook.com/philamuseum
Tumble with them www.Tumblr.com/philamuseum
Or see their YouTube videos: www.youtube.com/PhilaArtMuseum
Have a great time and get ready to see Art in Action!
-r
Check out the time The Bee and I played tourists in Philly!
r’s note: I was given complimentary tickets to this exhibit.
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