UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State will celebrate its 50th anniversary as a leading university art museum in 2022 with an array of exhibitions, programs and events throughout the year. The festivities will be bookended by exhibitions that spotlight the Palmer’s collection of American art and consider the institution’s public service, history and identity. The final exhibition of 2022 will close the museum’s current facility as the institution looks ahead to the opening of its new home that is under construction in the Arboretum at Penn State.
“As a vital educational resource and cultural destination, the Palmer Museum of Art, in partnership with its Penn State and broader communities, looks forward to honoring our past, recognizing those who brought us to this auspicious moment and embracing a bright and dynamic future through this range of accessible and relevant projects celebrating our landmark anniversary in 2022,” said Palmer Museum Director Erin M. Coe.
The centerpiece of the Palmer’s golden anniversary, "An American Place: Selections from the James and Barbara Palmer Collection," will be on view at the Museum from Jan. 29 through April 24, 2022. The Palmer Museum of Art boasts one of the finest collections of American art in any academic museum in the country.
The sweeping exhibition examines the complexity of our national narrative, highlighting a century of American art from the post-Civil War decades through the civil rights era. The exhibition will present paintings, works on paper and sculpture drawn from the bequest of lead philanthropist Barbara Palmer, who passed away in 2019. She and her husband, James, amassed a collection over three decades and established a signature collection that includes Ashcan portraits, scenes of everyday life, modernist explorations and a broad range of mid-century voices – many of them once marginalized – demonstrating the discerning inclusivity of their vision and the diverse breadth of the story of American art.
"An American Place" is organized into four thematic sections: Breaking Ties, Rootedness and the Flux of Modernity, America as Place and Diverse Voices. Among the notable artists to be showcased in the exhibition are Milton Avery, Romare Bearden, Thomas Hart Benton, Charles Burchfield, Paul Cadmus, Mary Cassatt, Frederic Edwin Church, Arthur Dove, Robert Gwathmey, Marsden Hartley, Martin Johnson Heade, Winslow Homer, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Joseph Stella and George Tooker.