Philadelphia artists at Woodmere Art Museum

The prime destination for anyone who wants to see works by a cross-section of fine Philadelphia artists, past and present, is the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill until October 17. Its galleries burst with paintings, prints and sculpture that define Philadelphia's urban culture.

The first gallery resembles a sketchbook of a happy family life in the not-too-distant past: "Fred Wagner: An American Painter "“ A Family Perspective." Paintings and family photographs of this American Impressionist (1860-1940) provide a lighthearted tribute to an artist who stayed within the boundaries.

Maitin's high spirits

Collage prints and posters along with studies for sculpture projects by Sam Maitin (1928-2004) fill the Corridor Gallery and the Schnader Gallery. Maitin's work is always life enhancing. The light-filled colors and curving patterns seem to weave and dance to music of the spheres. No wonder every healing institution wanted Maitin to do something on its site. Just to look at one of his prints makes your spirits rise. We truly miss his presence in our daily life.

The Philadelphia Sketch Club takes pride of place in the other main galleries. "Surviving Ourselves: 150 Years of Friendship in the Arts" includes multiple works by 15 current members of this historic club, who also are represented in the Woodmere's permanent collection. Take your time and enjoy this feast of 123 paintings and prints. Following Jack Gerber's six decades of development from his Self Portrait to his recent Leda and the Swan in the museum's collection is like an abbreviated history of art. Now I await his next phase. Will it be video or installation art?

Moe Broker's abstract canvases are always a delight. My favorite, I Come to Dance My Joy, gladdens my heart. It's only 24 by 24 inches, and every centimeter counts.

Future promise

William H. Campbell's three paintings range from an architectural inspired gouache on board to Art and Illusion, an abstract pattern that seems to move in rhythm. Among Reinhold Edelstein's 21 paintings, I was particularly taken with Between Winter and Spring (2009), whose abstract composition of cool blues, a brown patch and touches of warm color radiated a new vitality with wonderful promise for future achievement.

Portrait of Susan, by Al Gury, is a sensitive study of a young woman's head and features, close enough that you feel as if you can touch her. I admire Gury's nudes, but those female models really need to stop eating so much. The male looks so much healthier. No wonder Eve stuck around.

Bill Scott's Stepping Out of a Boat (2009, oil on canvas) is everything a painting should be: a perfectly integrated composition with shapes and colors that advance and recede in a pleasing asymmetry. It seems to hold all of nature for our contemplation and joy.

Artists often mistake the actual color of water in the canals of Venice, but James Toogood got it just right in his watercolor painting, Rio Della Becario (2008). Toogood, always a careful observer of the natural scene, must have looked long and hard to eschew the usual deep blue tonality that we've seen in many other versions. Blizzard in the Village, his watercolor of 2007, almost made me reach for my mittens and muffler. And I felt as if I could walk right down Arch Street (1983), from the Woodmere Museum's collection.

Scent of a woman

My only quibble with this celebration is its paucity of women artists (only one). A museum filled with works by Philadelphia artists, and only one woman represented?

The Woodmere's curator, Don Meyer, assured me that Frances Galante is the only woman who qualified for inclusion in the Sketch Club exhibition. But can this be possible? The Sketch Club had to begin admitting women in 1990 or lose its tax exemption. Who is remiss? Anyway, enjoy Galante's 14 paintings; especially note her Studio Desk, Little Sister, Rower II and Lakshmi for their superior compositions and subtle palette.

Now that we have seen the past and present of Philadelphia artists, I look forward to the next wave. Who will launch exhibitions revealing the newest work by the younger artists in town? I'm waiting; please don't let me down.♦


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