Woodmere Art Museum presents Peter Paone’s Snowpeople

Woodmere Art Museum has recently opened Maguire Hall, a restored 19th-century mansion a block away from Smith Hall, its original venue. This inaugural exhibition displays Paone’s series of imaginative portraits. Using the theme of snowpersons, he offers ideas about “the human condition,” a ponderous notion for the usually light-hearted representation of snow sculpture. Yet Paone’s art background includes study at the Barnes Foundation, whose educational program was influenced by John Dewey’s philosophy: art is not something separate from everyday life.

Borrowing from Bosch

The paintings depict phantasmagorical characters, all gouache on paper, 18” x 14”. Wildly inventive and interesting, the paintings borrow from allegorical medieval imagery (such as Hieronymus Bosch) and Surrealism. Still, the images convey the idiosyncratic characteristics Paone has consistently expressed in his oeuvre: dark humor, enigmatic references, and absurdity.

With few exceptions, the “portraits” depict anthropomorphic snow forms (fresh snow, sooty stuff, or a dog-peed-on-it sort), framed against warm white backgrounds. The figures are individually decked out with a variety of customary accoutrements: tree branches, holly, lumps of coal, hats, colorful scarves, ribbons, buttons, badges, feathers, and gloves. Peculiar and even deviant adornments include a hanger, an umbrella, insects, dead birds, Disney(ish) mouse ears, fangs, and a dismembered claw. Bird imagery recurs, and other animal references include rabbits, dogs, and frogs. For example, Snowperson 27 is a pissed-off amphibian. Snowperson 11, a mysterious, grid-patterned, bulky form, sports a black pearl necklace, has one weary pale eye, and a small blue bird for a nose.

Many kinds of monsters

For all their variety and citations, Snowpeople seem to be self-portraits, caricatures, personifications, tricksters, or ogres. There are many kinds of monsters in the world; the worst will unalive you, the lesser will steal your identity or cut your queue. In a psychological and cultural context, monsters are part of the human condition, serving as metaphors for societal fears, personal anxieties, and a lack of morality. Additionally, Paone seems to imply that his snow people portraits—as embodiments of the human condition—are like us: creative, experimental, and temporal creatures.

Sly transgressive moments create tension in some of the artworks. Snowperson 15, in three-quarters profile, gazes out at the viewer from the picture plane, giving frosty judgmental side-eye, sporting two badges and an elegant, embossed coating. Snowperson 23, impaled with feather quills, is vaguely reminiscent of St. Sebastian. A wire hanger perches on their head as the sun over their shoulder threatens to hasten their demise.

Paone’s path

Paone, a figurative painter and printmaker, is in major collections and exhibits globally, with recent local venues at the Brandywine and Michener Museums. A first-generation Italian American, he took art classes as a child at Fleisher Art Memorial, then as a teen at the Barnes, earning a baccalaureate from the Philadelphia Museum School of Art (the original iteration of the now-defunct University of the Arts), eventually apprenticing with Ben Shahn. As a Guggenheim Fellow in London in 1966, Paone painted miniature ivory portraits, including two of the Beatles. After teaching at Pratt, he moved back to Philly and joined the faculty at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Now, Paone is in his studio, drawing and painting ceaselessly.

Meet the new Maguire Hall

Snowpeople is on the top level of Maguire, in the von Hess Foundation Center, accessible by a glass elevator from the lobby. The gallery, a deep, narrow space with a curved rear wall, is crowned by pitched eaves and a skylight. Cherry-red ottomans offer seating options.

Spend some time exploring the rest of Frances M. Maguire Hall for Art and Education. Originally built in the mid-19th century as a summer manor, it became a convent in the 1920s. Woodmere engaged Matthew Baird Architects and Krieger + Associates Architects to transform the original parlors and bedrooms into fourteen galleries and a children’s art studio for drop-in classes. Surrounded by four acres, Andropogon Landscape Architects will eventually finalize the grounds and gardens to integrate art and nature into a sustainable green space that upholds Lenape traditions. There’s plenty of complimentary parking on site.

Many of the original building’s interior design elements have been thoughtfully preserved and expanded with Art Deco chandeliers, sconces, and glassworks preserved from Center City’s Boyd Theater, demolished in 2015. Another exceptional feature includes wood panel carvings by Edward Maene, a master carver of the Arts and Crafts movement in Philadelphia.

An expansion of Philly’s creative legacy

The acquisition and transformation of Maguire Hall doubles Woodmere’s ability to display its large, inclusive collection of American art, which emphasizes Philadelphia’s creative legacy. Maguire’s galleries focus on 20th-century artists. They are thematically arranged and include Illustration, Pennsylvania Impressionism, Figurative Realism, Early Modernism, Jewelry Arts, and Photography. Artworks are hung salon-style in galleries, halls, and stairwells, so art is literally everywhere.

On my visit, memorable standouts are the Straw Study Center dedicated to women artists adjacent to the House of Wisdom, a display of Violet Oakley’s allegorical murals arranged as she wanted them to be experienced; the three galleries in the basement called the Jewelry Vault, which feature radiant innovative displays and magnifying glasses for close views; Paone’s “Carnaby Street on Ivory” ivory miniatures capturing the groovy spirit of 1960’s London; and two restrooms that showcase dazzling wallpaper created from designs by the late great Edna Andrade. A glass elevator and gallery windows provide sweeping views of the surrounding landscape. Conveniently, visitors may opt for the free Bloomberg Connects app on their smartphones to access information about works in the collection.