Reading Public Museum

The Reading Public Museum is a museum in Reading, Pennsylvania, located in the 18th Ward, along the Wyomissing Creek. By the size and scope of its collection, numbering more than 280,000 objects and specimens, it is the largest private museum and largest collection of artwork, numbering over 50,000 works, located between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The museum's permanent collection focuses primarily on art, science, and cultural artifacts and its site also features the Neag planetarium and a 25-acre (100,000m2) arboretum filled with rare plants and champion trees.

The Museum has a long history of innovative programming and exhibitions, including hosting major solo exhibitions and retrospectives for artists such as Alexandre Iacovleff (1947); Claude Venard (1969); Valfred Thelin (1969); Tetsuro Sawada (1970); Gloria Vanderbilt (1971); Marsden Hartley (1971); Robert Indiana (1983); Jimmy Ernst (1991); Liliana Porter (1993); Brigitta Bertoia (1994); Reuben Nakian, (1999); Dan Namingha (1991) and David Lynch (2003) among others. It was one of the first museums in the United States to exhibit, in 1937, the original cartoons and drawings of the noted animator and film executive Walt Disney (1901–1966); and was the very first museum in the world to both exhibit a work by and award a prize to the internationally recognized pop artist and Pennsylvania native Keith Haring (1958–1990).

History

The Museum was founded in 1904, when the Reading School District board authorized the purchase of exhibits from the Saint Louis World's Fair. These new purchases were added to the private natural history collections of Dr. Levi W. Mengel. The Museum opened its doors, at the old school administration building on Washington and Eighth streets, to the general public in 1913; that same year, The Museum started collecting works of art. While the name 'public' has always been a part of the museum's name, it was, in fact, founded as a private institution. Originally the museum was not open to the general public, but was only accessible to the students of the Reading School District to support their studies.

Levi Mengel was The Museum's first director and was its founding father. Christopher Shearer, a well-known landscape artist was The Museum's first curator of art. Ground was broken at its current location in February 1925; the foundation stone was laid on May 1, 1925, and by 1928, the Museum was officially opened to the public in its new Beaux-Art style structure that was designed by Alexander Forbes Smith. In 1998, architect Der Scutt was commissioned to add an atrium entrance to the existing structure. The Arboretum was planned in the late-1920s by renowned American landscape architect John Nolen and outfitted with rare plant and flower specimens from the personal collection of noted Irisarian Bertrand H. Farr (1863–1924). Since 1991, The Museum has been operated by The Foundation for the Reading Public Museum. The Museum has been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums since 1982.

The Museum Collection

American Art

American art has anchored the Museum's collection since 1913. What began with the purchase of a winter landscape by the local artist Victor Shearer quickly expanded as curators regularly acquired works from the Annual Exhibitions at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, securing examples by leading national figures.

A very early acquisition of a painting by Mary B. Leisz proved especially significant, establishing a century-long commitment to collecting works by both emerging and prominent women artists. The Philadelphia Ten, a group of women who exhibited together between 1917 and 1945, is well represented in RPM's collection. Artists include Theresa Bernstein, Cora Smalley Brooks, Fern Coppedge, Nancy Maybin Ferguson, Harriett Frishmuth, and Arrah Lee Gaul. Other prominent women in The Museums’ holdings include Susan McDowell Eakins, Peale Family descendant Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer, Mary Parker Kornhauser, Tillie Neville Prizer, Mary Heister Reid, and Ida Waugh, as well as the sculptors Lillian Baer, Sonia Gordon Brown, Malvina Hoffman, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Brenda Putnam, and Katharine Lane Weems, among others.

The collection includes important historic paintings from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by artists such as Thomas Birch, Jacob Eichholtz, Raphaelle Peale, Peter Rothermel, Gilbert Stuart, and Benjamin West. The Museum also holds strong examples of the Hudson River School, with works by Frederic Edwin Church, Jasper Francis Cropsey, Hermann Herzog, George Inness, Frederick Kensett, William Trost Richards, William Louis Sonntag, Paul Weber, and Worthington Whittredge, among others.

American Impressionism is a particular strength of the collection, represented by works by Cecilia Beaux, Frank Weston Benson, Emil Carlsen, William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Charles Webster Hawthorne, Ernest Lawson, Frederick Mulhaupt, William McGregor Paxton, Jane Peterson, Robert Lewis Reid, John Singer Sargent, Abbott Handerson Thayer, John Henry Twachtman, Martha Walter, and Guy Wiggins. The collection also features substantial holdings from the impressionist-leaning New Hope School (Bucks County School), including works by John Folinsbee, Daniel Garber, William Langson Lathrop, Arthur Meltzer, Edward Willis Redfield, Paulette Van Roekens, Charles Rosen, Walter Elmer Schofield, George Sotter, and Robert Spencer.

American modernism is represented by members of the Ashcan School, including George Bellows, William Glackens, Robert Henri, George Luks, and John Sloan, whose work shaped the avant-garde scenes of Pennsylvania and New York. Additional modernist works include paintings by Arthur B. Davies, Werner Drewes, Leon Dabo, and Joseph Stella.

Among mid-century artists, the Museum holds one of the largest collections of works by William Baziotes in the United States. This extraordinary holding includes nearly 1,000 works—oils, watercolors, drawings, and approximately 900 sketches across 43 sketchbooks—by the artist, who was born in Pittsburgh and raised in Reading. The sculptor and designer Harry Bertoia is also well represented, with more than 50 works in the collection. Additional mid-century strengths include Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting, with works by Friedel Dzubas, Helen Frankenthaler, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Jules Olitski, and Kenzo Okada.

The Museum also serves as the primary repository for works by historic Berks County artists. Notable holdings include more than 30 works by Christopher H. Shearer, over 25 by Ben Austrian, more than 15 by Augustus Adolphus Behne, and more than a dozen works by Francis Devlan.

European Art

From its earliest years, the Reading Public Museum actively sought to build a distinguished collection of European art. These include a group of Old Masters with works by Domenico di Zanobi (Master of the Johnson Nativity), a very rare fresco by Domenico di Michelino, and a painting by the Spanish/Neapolitan artist Giovanni Dó. In addition there is a pair of sculptures attributed to a follower of Tilman Reimenschneider, a pair of coppers by Jan Brueghel the Younger, and compositions by Peter Lely, John Hayls, Joshua Reynolds, Simon de Vos, Jacomo Victors, and Pieter Wouwerman.

Early benefactors—including Henry Janssen, Ferdinand Thun, and Gustav Oberlaender—played a pivotal role in shaping the collection, securing important paintings by leading nineteenth-century artists associated with the Munich and Düsseldorf Schools, including Andreas Achenbach, Oswald Achenbach, Rudolf Epp, Adolf Schreyer, and Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller.

The Museum's holdings are particularly strong in nineteenth-century French painting, with notable examples by academic artists such as Julien Dupré and Léon Augustin Lhermitte, as well as members of the Barbizon School, including Charles-François Daubigny, Narcisse Virgilio Díaz de la Peña, and Théodore Rousseau.

French Impressionism is represented by three significant works by Edgar Degas, generously donated by members of the Henry K. Dick family, alongside paintings by Jean-Charles Cazin, Maximilien Luce, Albert Lebourg, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Victor Vignon. The collection also features outstanding examples of Spanish Realism by Marià Fortuny, Martín Rico y Ortega, Emilio Sánchez Perrier, and Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta, as well as important works by other nineteenth century masters, including Eugène Cicéri, Hermann Corrodi, Hans Dahl, German Grobe, Frits Thaulow, and Anton Mauve.

Sculpture

The Museum holds an extensive collection of sculpture from around the world, including works from Asia, Africa, Europe and America. These include works by Auguste Rodin, Edward McCartan, Harriett Whitney Frishmuth, Cyrus Dallin, James Earl Fraser, Henry Moore, Harry Bertoia, George Segal, Nancy Graves, Frank Stella, and Deborah Butterfield. A selection of these works are rotated throughout the Museum on a regular basis, although Edward McCartan's "Drinking Girl" is out on permanent display in the Founders' Gallery.

Works on Paper

More than 12,000 works on paper are housed at the Museum, including etchings, woodblocks, watercolors drawings and photographs. The holdings include illuminated manuscripts, works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Francisco Goya, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, through the prints of Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, Chuck Close, and Keith Haring. Photographs by Edweard Muybridge, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, Berenice Abbott, and Dorthea Lange are also represented.

Ancient Art

The Museum's ancient collection, mainly assembled by local industrialist Gustav Oberlaender through his generous sponsorship of archaeological digs across the Mediterranean world, includes Nefrina, a mummy from the Ptolemaic period in ancient Egypt. Other notable holdings include an important collection of Greek vases (including the Herakles Vase attributed to the Alkmene Painter), Greek and Roman marbles, and extensive holdings of artworks from ancient Egypt.

Arms & Armor

The Arms and Armor gallery features exceptional European examples from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—including a Maximilian suit of armor—as well as examples from Japan, the Islamic world, Africa, and the South Pacific. Additional sculptures and paintings depicting the use of armor throughout history completes the holdings.

Native American

Hundreds of historic North American Indian artworks from the Lenape, Montagnais, Inuit, Blackfoot, Acoma, Hopi, Sioux, Crow, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Cochiti, and Mandan peoples are housed at The Reading Public Museum. These works are not generally on view, and are mainly accessible for examination and study by members of Native American tribal nations and other approved, academic researchers.

Asian Art

Collecting Asian art was part of The Museum's practice from its earliest days. The Museum's collection of Asian artwork spans more than 2,500 years and includes a group of twelve Japanese temple guardian figures from the sixteenth century, a rare ritual jade cup with poetic inscription from the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799), a group of Tang and Han Dynasty tomb figures, a stunning standing Chinese bodhisattva Guanyin from the fourteenth century, a fine Japanese painting of Jizo Bosatsu on Lotus from the early fifteenth century, a bronze tripod ritual wine vessel (jue) from the twelfth century BCE, and a group of elaborately carved Chinese rhinoceros horn libation cups. Other key highlights include a Jain Svetambara Tirthankara in Meditation, a monumental carved ivory tusk with hundreds of figures from the workshop of Hoaching from the 1850s-60s, and a jade disc from the third century BCE. Japanese woodblock prints also form part of the holdings, as do other artworks from China, Japan, India, Tibet and Thailand.

Latin American Art

Ancient and contemporary works originating from Central and South America form an important holding for the Museum, as these objects directly relate to the large Latin American population that has settled in the region. The holdings include precious objects, ceramics, sculptures, paintings and prints. Among the contemporary works are sculptures and paintings by Carlos Luna and Patrick McGrath Muniz.

Pennsylvania German

The Museum houses a large collection of Pennsylvania German objects that relate primarily to Berks County and the surrounding region, and include numerous fraktur drawings and certificates, painted furniture, including one of the finest examples of a dower chest by the Black Unicorn Artist, glazed earthenware, clocks, tinware, and paintings

Natural History

The Museum's natural history collection is one of the largest housed in Pennsylvania, and includes hundreds of thousands of specimens of moths and butterflies (many of them collected by Levi W. S. Mengel), as well as other insects, birds, nests, bird eggs, mammals, fossils, minerals, botanical specimens, and animal skins. The Museum holdings in this area include examples not held anywhere else in the world. While some pieces from the collection are rotated through the Museum regularly, the majority of these specimens are primarily made available to approved, academic researchers.

The Neag Planetarium

The idea for a planetarium in Reading can be traced back to the early 1950’s. Sometime during the early part of 1952, a proposal was floated for a Planetarium to be built inside the Museum’s art galleries, but space was inadequate, so the idea was abandoned. The dream continued into the early 1960’s, but this time with the hopes of securing a separate facility on the grounds where the planetarium could be located. The only obstacle was funding.

That changed when in the spring of 1963 the Berks County Women’s Club came to the aid of the Museum and began a campaign to raise funds for the new facility. Their fundraising efforts were eventually combined with a five-year loan, federal funds, and private contributions, and by 1967, the idea became a possibility rather than just a dream.

Designs were developed and finalized, construction crews from Burkey Construction were assembled, and by December ground was broken. Construction continued for the next year and by December 15, 1968, the planetarium was opened and placed into operation. To the enthusiastic delight of local children, the first public shows began in January of 1969. The planetarium’s total construction costs came in at $70,522.

From 1968 through 2006, the Planetarium’s star projector was a Spitz A4 optical/mechanical projector, along with dozens of slide and special effects projectors. In early 2006, local philanthropists Ray and Carole Neag bestowed on the planetarium a generous gift to finance upgrades in order to transition into one of the country’s first digital projection systems. Because of this gift, the facility was renamed “The Neag Planetarium at the Reading Public Museum.”

In mid-2017, the Museum secured funding from the Wyncote Foundation in Philadelphia, whose mission is “to support efforts that strengthen and enrich culture, community and the natural environment,” to upgrade the existing 2006 digital technologies for the Neag Planetarium. The new system is a SCIDome IQ 4K Laser Projection System and it was installed by Spitz Incorporated based out of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

The current system is unique in that it uses two digital projectors instead of one. These two projectors are installed out of the viewer’s line of sight on opposite sides of the dome, allowing the creation of one large image. The lack of a projector located in the center of the planetarium chamber makes for a much more streamlined seating arrangement, opening up the space for much more creative use during special events and rentals.

See also

• List of botanical gardens in the United States

External links

• within Google Arts & Culture
• Media related toReading Public Museumat Wikimedia Commons