The Penn Stater Magazine

Meanwhile, Up at the Palmer Museum…

September 26, 2011 at 5:11 pm Tina Hay 1 comment

Our Executive Board—part of the Alumni Association’s all-volunteer governing body called Alumni Council—was in town for meetings last Thursday and Friday, and on Friday evening they finished with a tour of the Palmer Museum of Art. Some of us on the staff tagged along. And I think everyone, volunteers and staff alike, was glad they went.

A detail from the Kenneth Hayes Miller painting "The Little Coat and Fur Shop" (1931).

I must confess it had been three years since I’d visited the Palmer; that was when I interviewed curator Joyce Robinson for a feature for the magazine. On Friday I was surprised (though I realize I shouldn’t be) at how much had changed since 2008.

The very cool figurine from the Ming Dynasty was still there, as were the Baroque-era painting “St. Sebastian Healed by An Angel” and the Henry Dexter bust of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. But there were plenty of works I hadn’t seen before, as well as a new exhibition of works by School of Visual Arts faculty that will be up there through Dec. 11.

And a Dale Chihuly glass piece that wasn’t on display when I last visited was available this time. (I remember Joyce telling me that only a small fraction of the museum’s holdings are on exhibit at any given time.)

In addition to the two photos you see here, I took photos of a dozen or so works that caught my eye; you can see those at the magazine’s Facebook page.

The Palmer Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sundays from noon to 4:00. On Fridays during home football weekends, the museum stays open a little later, until 6:00 p.m. I highly recommend a visit.

By the way, we’re tentatively planning to do a photo essay in our Jan-Feb issue on an exhibition called Painting the People: Images of American Life from the Maimon Collection, which runs Jan. 31–May 13 at the Palmer. Lee Maimon ’56 and his wife, Barbara, have collected some very interesting paintings from the 1920s and ’30s and are lending them for the exhibition. More on that another time.

Tina Hay, editor

Entry filed under: Alumni Association, College of Arts and Architecture, Palmer Museum of Art. Tags: "The Little Coat and Fur Shop", Dale Chihuly, Henry Dexter, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Maimon Collection, Penn State School of Visual Arts, St. Sebastian Healed by an Angel.