Current Exhibition
Movement is Life
March 2, 2024 – June 3, 2024
This year, at the Wharton Esherick Museum (WEM), we are celebrating the creative energy that Wharton Esherick found in the rhythms of life. Throughout 2024, our programs, exhibitions, and events will focus on art as it interacts with the rhythmic aspects of the natural world, inclusive of the human body. Shifting seasons, daily rituals, life cycles, and body mechanics are rhythmic movements that informed Esherick’s work, as they do for contemporary makers today.
Throughout Esherick’s hand crafted Studio, his sense of rhythm rings clear. From the intuitive axe strokes that define his wood sculptures, to the organic patterning of the stonework on the building exterior, he hewed to the tempo of breath and the cadence of landscape. In his desire to make nature his ultimate timekeeper, Esherick pushed against currents of industrialization in the machine-age era when he lived. Movement is Life, our spring exhibition, kicks off a year of programming at WEM that traces the thread of rhythms from the 1920s through the present.
Off the Shelf–
Wharton Esherick Museum Book Club
Calling all Esherick fans and readers! Off the Shelf is an Esherick-like twist on the classic book club! It provides the opportunity for bookworms, Esherick fans, and local community members alike to explore Wharton Esherick’s legacy through the artist’s own richly stocked bookshelves, as well as recently published books that illuminate Esherick’s artistic networks and enduring legacy.
Meetings are once a month and take place in Esherick’s 1956 Workshop and features an exclusive look into WEM’s special collections and archives to explore materials related to the month’s book. Discussions will be moderated by friend of the museum, WEM board member, and Director of West Chester University Special Collections, Ron McColl, and will feature occasional guest specialists.
Upcoming Exhibition
Rhythms: 30th Annual Juried Woodworking Exhibition
June 13, 2024 – September 8, 2024
Since 1994, the Wharton Esherick Museum’s annual rhythm has included the Juried Woodworking Exhibition, designed to highlight connections between Esherick’s creative legacy and the work of contemporary makers. For thirty years, this project has showcased works by hundreds of professional woodworkers, artists, designers, hobbyists, and craftspeople that reflect a form or theme drawn from Esherick’s life.
For the 30th Annual Juried Woodworking Exhibition, we invited artists to share works that explore the rhythms that shape their lives, both creative and personal. The 25 finalists for Rhythms were selected from an international pool by jurors and the exhibition featuring the works of all included artists will be hosted virtually here our website. The artworks selected for First, Second, Third place and Honorable Mention will also be on display in the Visitor Center through September 8th,which is open during our tour hours.
Pictured: First place prizewinner Reaction by Chelsea Witt. Photography by Mark Juliana.
“If it’s not fun, it’s not worth doing” –Wharton Esherick
The Wharton Esherick Museum celebrates and preserves the legacy of American artist Wharton Esherick, who worked primarily in wood to create furniture, furnishings, utensils, interiors, buildings and more.
A National Historic Landmark for Architecture, his hilltop studio/residence, with more than 300 of his works on exhibition, has been preserved much as it was when the artist lived and worked there.
We invite you to visit the Museum through a guided experience for which reservations are required.
Upcoming Offsite Exhibition
The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick at Brandywine Museum of Art
October 12, 2024 – January 19, 2025
This exhibition explores the interdisciplinary creativity of Wharton Esherick (1887-1970), the famed American artist best known as the father of the Studio Furniture Movement.
The Crafted World brings selections from this rich and rarely loaned collection to a broader public, including many objects never before seen except in Esherick’s home and studio. Detailing the artist’s career from his early woodcut illustrations for books by members of the avant-garde literati to his revolutionary reimagining of furniture forms as organic sculpture, works will be presented in thematic vignettes that invite visitors into Esherick’s story and bring the essence of his creative world into the gallery.
We are excited to share that there will be a book to accompany The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick exhibition! Published by Rizzoli and authored Sarah Archer, Colin Fanning, Ann Glasscock, Holly Gore, and Emily Zilber with photographs by Joshua McHugh, this book introduces Esherick’s visionary work to a broader public, this book draws on the museum’s collection of almost 3,000 objects, many never before seen outside his home and studio, following Esherick’s evolution from paintings and woodcut illustrations to his revolutionary fusion of furniture and organic sculpture. Through fully contextualizing iconic works in Esherick’s own space, this book immerses readers in his creative world while capturing his unparalleled artistic contributions to the realms of furniture, architecture, prints, drawings, and sculpture.
» Preorder The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick
“A complete expression of one man’s intensely personal fusion of fine craftsmanship with the wild flights of the imagination.”
“Fun, neat, creative, colorful, comfortable, smooth, flowing, exciting, cool, twisty, wavy, and extraordinary.”
