News Release
September 2003

Moravian College’s Payne Gallery opens season with new acquisitions

O’Keefe watercolor, sculpture by Eakins and Sargent recently added to permanent collection

(Bethlehem, Pa).—Fifty works new to the permanent collection of Payne Gallery at Moravian College will go on display Thursday, September 18, to open the gallery’s 2002-2003 season. The show runs until Sunday, October 19.

The acquisitions are the fruits of a long-term plan by Dr. Diane Radycki, assistant professor of art history and director of the gallery, to make the collection and the revolving exhibits more responsive to the needs of the College.

Radycki, who is entering her fifth year as Payne’s director, is its first art historian and professional curator. She has a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

“In order to move the gallery in a very academic direction, I organized a four-year plan of exhibits in concert with the undergraduate experience,” Radycki explained. “It’s a way of teaching art in both the classroom and the gallery. Having the gallery here also is a practicum for the students on how galleries are run.”

The show includes works donated or purchased with a $650,000 donation from an anonymous donor. These include:

• Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986). “Abstraction: Pale Sun” (1916), watercolor. [scan available]

• Edward Redfield (1869-1965). “Winter Solitude” (c. 1920), oil on canvas. [scan available]

• Thomas Eakins (1844-1916). “Arcadia” (1888), a bronze frieze. [scan available]

• John Singer Sargent, “Study for the Conflict Between Victory and Death” (1922), bronze sculpture. [scan available]

Some were acquired for, or from, previous exhibits, including:

• Gertrude Käsebier (1852-1934). “Willie Spotted Horse” (c. 1901), platinum print. [scan included] Acquired for “Gertrude Kasebier: Photographs of Conscience and Consequence,” Spring 2003. Also, two issues of Alfred Stieglitz’s influential turn-of-the-century journal Camera Work., featuring photographs by Kasebier.

• Elizabeth Catlett (b. 1915). “Three Women of America” (1990), serigraph, and painting by Francisco Mora. Acquired from “Betty and Pancho,” Winter 2003. [scan of Catlett work available]

• A painting by Damon Lehrer from his Fall 2002 show.

• A Polish circus poster from “Cyrk,” a show of satirical posters from the Communist era, Winter 2003.

• Drawings by Miriam Brumer, from “The World Imagined: Paintings and Drawings by Miriam Brumer,” Winter 2001.

• “Traveling View,” a 1998 “geological acrylic” by Frances Barth (b. 1946), from “Frances Barth Paintings: Geological Time,” Fall 1999.

Other works in the show are drawings by Amadeus A. Reinke, a 19th-century Moravian bishop; a photograph by William Gedney (1932-89); bronzes by Malvina Hoffman (1887-1966) and Bessie Potter Vonnoh (1872-1955); and watercolors by the American pre-Raphaelite William Trost Richards (1833-1905).

“Recent Acquisitions” opens with a reception, 7:30-9:00 p.m. Thursday, September 18.

Payne Gallery is part of Moravian College’s Priscilla Payne Hurd Campus on Church Street in downtown Bethlehem. Hours are 11:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. It is closed Mondays, major holidays, and during the College’s fall break (October 11-14). Information and directions: (610) 861-1680, weekend (610) 861-1667, or www.moravian.edu.