American, born Germany, 1917–1992
N.Y. VII, 1972
Acrylic on canvas
Gift of the Artist in Memory of David Getz, 1975. (1975.162.3)
Aliza Nisenbaum
American, born Mexico, 1977
15 Minutes to Curtain, Soprano Angel
Blue (MET Traviata), 2023
Oil on linen
Partial gift of Eric Emmanuel with additional funding provided by The Estelle Reninger Fund, 2024. (2024.7)
This painting is one of three diva portraits that Aliza Nisenbaum created of the sopranos in the Metropolitan Opera’s 2023 rendition of La Traviata. In this project, she was interested in the stars behind the opera’s glamorous production. Here, one of the lead performers, Angel Blue, stands in her dressing room beside her sheet music and piano complete in her makeup and costume. Nisenbaum’s use of shimmering gold and silver, pastel colors, and decorative patterns create a fairytale atmosphere, emphasizing the magical quality of stage production. Her emphasis on Blue behind-the-scenes underscores the creative labor that often goes unseen in theater and opera.
Francisco Zúñiga
Mexican, born Costa Rica, 1912–1998
Yucateca Con Fruta, 1974
Screen print, edition: 300
Printer and publisher: Kyron, Mexico City, Mexico
Gift of Argosy Partners and Bond Street Partners, 1979. (1979.73.7)
Rigo Peralta
American, born Dominican Republic, 1970
Doña Negra, 2016
Acrylic on linen
Purchase: The Ardath Rodale Art Acquisition Fund, 2019. (2019.7)
This portrait of the artist’s grandmother upends the expected formality of the format and brings its sitter to vibrant life. Analuisa Torres-Peralta was affectionately known as La Negra for her dark skin. In this painting, Doña Negra—at age 94—smokes an Exactus Maduro cigar, made in the Dominican Republic where both she and her grandson were born. The cigar recalls the long history of tobacco growing in the Dominican Republic. It suggests the country’s role in the global economy and references the Indigenous Taino people who cultivated tobacco in the Caribbean islands. The portrait also evokes fond and important memories for the Allentown-based artist, who has said, “It represented an almost sacred ritual to be able to smoke a Dominican cigar with my grandmother.”
Nelson Shanks
American, 1937–2015
Nancy, 1974
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Franklin D. Crawford, Princeton, New Jersey, 1975. (1975.147)
The founder of a school for realist art in Philadelphia, Nelson Shanks is known for his presidential portraits, including those of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, and his portraits of influential women, such as the first four female justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Here Shanks lends gravitas to a more personal depiction of an individual woman.
Jennifer Bartlett
American, 1941–2022
The Elements: Air, 1992
The Elements: Water, 1992
The Elements: Fire, 1992
The Elements: Earth, 1992
Etching and aquatints, edition: 80
Printer: Patricia Branstead, Aeropress, New York, NY
Publisher: Creative Works Editions, Osaka, Japan
Purchase: SOTA Print Fund, 2005. (2005.19.1-4a)
Jennifer Bartlett produced The Elements as the culmination of her painting and pastel studies of air, water, fire, and earth. While the symbols featured do not always seem to align with the theme identified in an individual print’s title, the thread of recurring motifs may demonstrate the ways that all four elements are interconnected.
On view behind you are four objects that correspond with each elemental print. The artist subtly subverts our expectations in her selection for each element, as the object chosen is not the dominant symbol in its corresponding print. Bartlett wanted these objects to evoke a sense of déjà vu, inviting viewers to restudy the prints and find hidden connections between the elements and motifs.
Sam Gilliam
American, 1933–2022
Element, 2008
Acrylic on birch
Gift of Sam Gilliam, 2018. (2018.8)
Sam Gilliam emerged from the Washington, D.C. scene in the mid-1960s to become one of the great innovators of abstract painting. This painting is part of a group of works that Gilliam called “constructed surprises.” He made these paintings by pouring and mixing paint on birch plywood, then cutting apart the boards and reassembling them. This process is related to the revolutionary painting method Gilliam developed in the late 1960s with his so-called Drape paintings, which involved pouring paint onto unstretched canvas and then hanging the canvas as a three-dimensional artwork.
Robert Motherwell
American, 1915–1991
Wall with Graffiti, 1950
Oil and charcoal on linen
Purchase: Gift of Estelle Reninger and Gift of The Dedalus Foundation, 1994. (1994.24)
Robert Motherwell started his paintings with something he called automatic drawing—random marks on the canvas meant to capture the subconscious. He painted Wall with Graffiti when he was completing a mural at a synagogue in Millburn, New Jersey. Although this painting is abstract, some elements suggest Old Testament references: for instance, the long white stroke at the left, covered with horizontal black marks, brings to mind Jacob’s Ladder, stretching from earth to heaven, and the Diaspora is indicated by a scribbled line drawing which suggests the wandering paths of the scattered tribes.
Gunther Gerzso
Mexican, 1913–2000
Geminis, 1961
Oil on Masonite
Gift of Rodale Family, 2017. (2017.25.1)
Gunther Gerzso described his abstract paintings as “landscapes of the spirit.” While he drew inspiration from the European modernists he worked with earlier in his career, by the 1960s he had turned his attention to the power he saw in Mexico’s terrain and pre-Columbian past. Here, his careful brushwork creates layers of earth-toned forms, and suggests hidden depths.
Alteronce Gumby
American, born 1985
Freedom Only Known to Them in
Whispers and Tales, 2022
Gemstones, willemite, calcite, glass and acrylic on panel
Purchase: SOTA Print Fund, 2023. (2023.1)
For this work, Alteronce Gumby assembled glass, minerals, and other unconventional materials into mosaic-like arrangements to evoke swirling galaxies and distant nebulae, a nod to the artist’s lifelong fascination with the cosmos and its infinite possibilities. The minerals used here—green willemite and red calcite—are fluorescent and glow when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) rays.
In only being observable under ultraviolet light—and otherwise undetectable by the human eye—these fluorescing minerals also become an apt metaphor for Gumby’s larger practice, which addresses issues of visibility and invisibility, and aims to challenge our assumptions about color by inviting us to think more expansively about it.
Ana Mendieta
American, born Cuba, 1948–1985
Fundamento de Palo Monte: Silueta Series (Gunpowder Works), 1980
Super-8mm film transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent
5 minutes, 56 seconds
On loan from Art Bridges
In this film, a human-shaped impression in the ground, created by Mendieta from the outline of her own body, undergoes a dramatic transformation: first we see it full of gunpowder, then consumed by fire until only ashes remain. This imagery suggests a cycle of death and renewal, blurring the line between artwork and ritual.
Artist Ana Mendieta often drew on Afro-Cuban religion in her work—including Palo Monte Mayombe, referenced in this film’s title—to explore themes of homeland and exile. When Mendieta was twelve, she and her sister left their family in Cuba through Operation Pedro Pan; as a result, they spent their teens in a series of American foster homes and orphanages. Mendieta’s art reckons with this trauma by seeking a sense of belonging and reconnection with the earth.
Will Barnet
American, 1911–2012
Clear Day, 1956
Oil on canvas
Gift of Abe Ajay, 1975. (1975.26)
In this landscape depicting Provincetown, Massachusetts, Barnet creates tension between flat, colorful shapes and a white ground. This abstract style—called Indian Space painting—uses Indigenous aesthetics to reimagine European Cubism. The white artists leading this movement believed that drawing inspiration from Native art would set them apart from European artists: Barnet described Indian Space painting as “real American art.” Do you agree? What do you think makes an artwork American?
Elizabeth Fowler
American
Quilt Top, Log Cabin, ca. 1900
Silk and cotton, pieced
Gift of Kate Fowler Merle‑Smith, 1980. (1980.12.4)
Richard Joseph Anuszkiewicz
American, born 1930
Converging Yellow Green, 1980
Acrylic on canvas
Gift of Dr. Jacob Bornstein, 1983. (1983.58)
The lines in this painting look like they are vibrating: this is because the painting’s dense stripes and contrast force your eyes to make constant tiny movements that bring different areas in and out of focus. Richard Anuszkiewicz was one of the founders of Op Art, a movement in which artists deliberately created optical illusions in their work. Many of his paintings use intense color and nesting shapes to play with viewers’ perception, creating art that is more about the experience of seeing than the painting itself.
Mary Bauermeister
German, 1934–2023, active in United States 1962–1972
Untitled, 1965
River pebbles on fabric-covered panel
Gift of Carolyn Phillips Minskoff, 1991. (1991.20.1)
Bauermeister glued river rocks and pebbles onto this panel and added comments that question the relationship between art and nature. At upper right, she even labels a painted group of rocks “art,” forcing attention to how this work blurs lines between artwork and found object. Her notes invite us to understand her process, which is as much about ideas as the finished product.
Louise Nevelson
American, 1899–1987
Mirror Shadow XXIV, 1986
Wood
RoBe Collection
Louise Nevelson foraged for the wood for her sculptures on the streets and loading docks of New York City. With attention to pattern, space, and balance, she looked past the everyday functions of objects such as window frames and banisters to use them as aesthetic elements. Her ability to transform such objects into imposing works of art made her one of the most significant sculptors of the twentieth century.
Jennifer Bartlett
American, 1941-2022
The Elements: Air, 1992
Square concrete plate with painted corners, edition: 80
The Elements: Water, 1992
Cast iron large leaf with stem, edition: 80
The Elements: Fire, 1992
Green ceramic bowl, edition: 80
The Elements: Earth, 1992
Rectangular wood box painted red, edition: 80
Publisher: Creative Works Editions, Osaka, Japan
Purchase: SOTA Print Fund, 2005. (2005.19.1-4b)
These four objects are paired with the four prints on the wall in front of you, left to right respectively, and represent some of the recurring motifs in the series.
American, 1929–2009
Cape (for Mildred Johnstone), ca. 1960s
Wool with silk lining
Gift of Mira Nakashima, 2021. (2021.18)
This brilliantly colored cape belonged to Milly Johnstone, the artist who made the embroidery at right. It fit in well with her flamboyant wardrobe: her niece recalls her wearing it to the opera in the late 1970s, with her long white hair loose down her back.
Johnstone commissioned the cape from Alice Kagawa Parrott, a fiber artist who shared her love of color. Parrott dyed all her own yarn using natural materials, drawing inspiration from the spinning, dyeing, and weaving traditions of Navajo and Hopi culture.
Mildred T. Johnstone with Joseph Cantieni
American, 1900–1988 and American, 1911–1995
Mrs. Ingot (Self Portrait), 1955
Wool and lurex embroidery
Gift of Margaret Balzer Cantieni, 2002. (2002.16.3)
“One day I was in the Strip Mill, close to a procession of flat cars, each with its glowing ‘ingot.’ They wound in and about me with the ritual movement of priestesses offering themselves up to the white heat…” – Mildred Johnstone
In this embroidery, Johnstone uses a variety of colors and textures to portray herself as an ingot of steel. She was fascinated by the steel-making process, and explored it in many of her works. In this case, Johnstone may have chosen to depict herself as an ingot because ingots were subsequently heated and reshaped in the steel mill. She saw this process as a metaphor for accepting the formative power of life’s events, a theme she also addressed in several similar self-portraits.
Flip Schulke
American, 1930–2008
Untitled, ca. 1960
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Jon and Nicky Ungar, 2015. (2015.19.95)
Joseph E.B. Elliott
American, born 1949
Blowing Engine Control Panel, Bethlehem Steel, Co., 1990
Gelatin silver print
Purchase: Priscilla Payne Hurd Endowment Fund, 1991. (1991.2.5)
Franz Kline
American, 1910–1962
Lehighton, 1945
Oil on canvas
Purchase: Leigh Schadt and Edwin Schadt Art Museum Trust Fund, 2016. (2016.12)
Harry Bertoia
American, 1915–1978
Far left: Untitled, ca. 1950s
Near left: Untitled, ca. 1940s
Monotypes on rice paper
Purchase: SOTA Print Fund, 1992. (1992.5.19)
Gift of Deborah S. Haight, 2001. (2001.6.1)
Harry Bertoia made monotypes at least once a week throughout his career. Many of his prints explore ideas about space and form related to his sculptures. Bertoia had to be slow and careful when making his metal sculptures, but he could work quickly and spontaneously with his prints. He explained, “To do one, then the other, is refreshing and stimulating, and one medium can do what the other could not. Yet at times they merge into a single image.”
Joan Mirό
Spanish, 1893–1983
Untitled
Untitled (The Yellow Broder)
from the illustrated book Le Lezard aux Plumes d’Or
(The Lizard with Golden Feathers), 1967
Lithographs, edition: 50, 100
Printer: Jean Célestin, Mourlot Atelier, Paris, France
Publisher: Louis Broder, Paris, France
Gift of Paul K. Kania, 2017. (2017.14.3,2)
Joan Mirό created prints—etchings, drypoints, lithographs, pochoirs, and illustrated books—throughout his career. The artist worked at print workshop Atelier 17 when it was based in Paris from 1927 to 1939, and then again in 1947, after its move to New York, where his experimental approach inspired other artists. The three lithographs from the 1960s on view here demonstrate the mutual influences of European Surrealism and American Abstract Expressionism resulting from the cross-pollination that occurred at Atelier 17.
Joan Mirό
Spanish, 1893–1983
Serie I, Bleu Sur Lavis Rouge
(Series I, Blue on Red Wash), 1961
Lithograph, edition: 30
Publisher: Maeght Éditeur, Paris, France
Gift of The Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 2012. (2012.4.4)
Harry Bertoia
American, 1915–1978
Wire Construction, 1960–70
Stainless steel wire on a steel base
Gift of Audrey and Bernard Berman, 1985. (1985.36)
Elsie Driggs
American, 1898–1992
Oxen, 1926
Oil on canvas
Purchase: The Reverend and Mrs. Van S. Merle-Smith Jr. Endowment Fund, 1998. (1998.18)
Elsie Driggs is often associated with the Precisionists, a group of American artists who in the 1920s depicted the industrialization and the modernization taking place across a rapidly changing American landscape using precise lines and crisp geometric shapes. Here, however, Driggs finds formal beauty in two oxen, reveling in the rhythmically undulating forms of the animals and the surrounding mountains.
Daniel Garber
American, 1880–1958
Springtime, Tohickon, 1936
Oil on canvas
Partial gift by Anonymous Donor
Grant Wood
American, 1891– 1942
March, 1939, published 1941
Lithograph, edition: 250
Printer: George C. Miller, New York, NY
Publisher: Associated American Artists, New York, NY
Purchase: SOTA Print Fund, 1967. (1967.91)
Milton Avery
American, 1893–1965
Coney Island, 1933
Oil on canvas
Gift of Milton Avery Trust, 1994. (1994.20)
This painting by Milton Avery—one of the most influential American artists of the twentieth century—represents the convergence of two major trends in art of the 1930s: social realism and modernism. The former is evident in Avery’s depiction of an ordinary scene at Coney Island, a beach popular at the time with working-class New Yorkers looking to escape the summer heat. Avery’s modernist treatment of his subject includes the painting’s tilted perspective, flattened forms, and multiple focal points.
George Bellows
American, 1882–1925
Dawn of Peace, 1918
Oil on canvas
Purchase: Gift of Estelle Reninger, 1990. (1990.15)
Motivated by a patriotic response to alleged German atrocities during World War I, George Bellows spent more than eight months on this painting. It belongs to a series of at least fifty related works that he created about wartime themes. Bellows probably found inspiration for Dawn of Peace in idealized popular illustrations of Red Cross nurses―the new heroines of the era.
Gifford Reynolds Beal
American, 1879–1956
Hiding the Liberty Bell in Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1938
Oil on Masonite
Gift of the Family of Gifford Beal, 2006. (2006.9)
Grant Wood, designer
American, 1891– 1942
Length, “The Ride of Paul Revere”,
1952
Cotton print
Produced by Associated American Artists
Manufacturer: Riverdale Drapery Fabrics, New York, NY
Transferred from American Textile History Museum, Gift of Cora Ginsburg, 2017. (2017.6.55)
Joseph Stella
American, born Italy, 1877–1946
Flower Form, 1938
Silverpoint and crayon on prepared paper
Gift of Angela Gross in Memory of Beatrice Nappi, 2004. (2004.31)
James Henry Daugherty
American, 1889–1974
Flight Into Egypt, ca. 1920
Oil on canvas
Purchase: General Acquisition Fund, 2001. (2001.4)
Robert Henri
American, 1865–1929
Isolina Maldonado—Spanish Dancer, 1921
Oil on canvas
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. John Altobelli, 1996. (1996.27)
William Zorach
American, 1887–1966
Hauling the Weir—Provincetown, 1916
Oil on canvas
Private Collection
Harold Weston
American, 1894–1972
Giant Winter, 1922
Oil on canvas
Purchase: The Reverend and Mrs. Van S. Merle-Smith Jr. Endowment Fund, 1987. (1987.8)
Whiting Manufacturing Company
American silver manufacturer, 1866–1924
Coffee Set, ca. 1880
Sterling Silver, copper, and ivory
Purchase: Gift of Edith M. Merkle in memory of Dr. Ralph Merkle, 2003. (2003.7.1.)
The asymmetrical arrangements of flowers and insects on this coffee service, as well as the use of mixed metals (as in the Japanese vase shown here), demonstrate the influence of Japanese art on American silver designers in the 1870s and 1880s.
Yoshitsugu
Japanese, active late 1800s
Nogawa Company, manufacturer
Japanese, est. 1825
Vase with Tree Branch Motif
Mixed metal inlay
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Herman Finkelstein, 1967. (1967.177.1)
Scheurer, Lauth & Cie.
French textile manufacturer, founded in 1813
Art Nouveau Printed Furnishing
Sample, ca. 1902–1903
Printed cotton
Louis Comfort Tiffany
American, 1848–1933
Tiffany & Company, manufacturer
New York, NY, 1837–present
Albert A. Southwick, designer
Presentation Vase with Cover, ca. 1915
Sterling silver with Limoges porcelain enamel decoration
Gift of Bethlehem Steel Co., 1985. (1985.25a, b)
Louis Comfort Tiffany was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, the famous jeweler and founder of Tiffany & Company. He started his career as a painter, becoming the firm’s chief designer after his father’s death in 1902. This vase reproduces, in enamel, two Louis Comfort Tiffany paintings representing the Roman goddesses Flora and Ceres, and their retinues. The enamel was thinly applied, allowing the engraved sketch to show through.
Tiffany & Company had participated in every world’s fair since the Paris Exposition of 1855, and thus gained an international reputation. This urn was created as a demonstration piece for San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific Exposition. It showcases the quality and sumptuousness of Tiffany products, in order to entice clients to place orders. In 1922, it was presented to Charles M. Schwab, chairperson of Bethlehem Steel, on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.
Frank Lloyd Wright
American, 1867–1959
Side Chair, ca. 1903
Oak and leather
Gift of Deborah S. Haight, 1997. (1997.6)
Frank Lloyd Wright designed this chair for a house he built for the Little family in Peoria, Illinois. When the Littles moved to Minnesota and had Wright design another house for them, they brought some of the furniture with them. This chair may, in fact, have been used in the library you see through this window, which is from the Little’s Minnesota home.
Unlike other progressive designers of his era, Wright drew inspiration from machine production. In this rectilinear chair, he makes obvious use of plain, machine-produced boards. The simplicity of his design highlights the beautiful arrowhead shapes in the wood’s grain, which can be seen on the chair back.
Attributed to Allen and Brother
Philadelphia, PA, active 1835–1896
Aesthetic Movement Desk,
1875–1880
American cherry, maple, and walnut; gilt and painted slate tiles
Purchase: Gift of Edith M. Merkle in Memory of Dr. Ralph Merkle, 2005. (2005.26)
This desk achieves an “artistic” look by evoking Japanese lacquer—with a little Gothic-inspired carving added for good measure. To mimic lacquer’s dark polish, the manufacturer treated the desk’s wood with iron acetate: this created a chemical reaction called ebonizing that colored the wood black. The desk’s gold panels with nature scenes echo lacquerware’s decorated surfaces.
Members of the Aesthetic movement valued beautiful furniture because they believed an attractive home would improve everyday life.
American or European
Side Chair, ca. 1880
Mahogany with mother-of-pearl, metal, and wood marquetry
Purchase: Gift of the King Family and General Acquisitions Fund, 2004. (2004.16.1)
Mary McFadden
American, 1938–2024
Long Gown from the Art Nouveau Collection, 1981
Marii-pleated polyester, embroidered,
sequined, and beaded
Gift of Lisa D. Kabnick and John H. McFadden, 2004.
(2004.13.2)
McFadden designed an iris-like motif for the bodice of this gown: its leaves stretch toward the wearer’s shoulders, as though it could grow beyond the garment. By evoking untamed nature, McFadden references Art Nouveau, an early twentieth-century design aesthetic which inspired her 1981 collection.
To the right, an 1896 print offers an example of the Art Nouveau style. The Chinese embroidered silk at far right, adorned with irises, alludes to the influence of non-Western artistic traditions on McFadden’s work (as well as Art Nouveau design).
Alphonse Mucha
Czech, 1860–1939
Gismonda, plate 27 from Les maitres de
l’affiche (The Masters of the Poster), 1894
Color lithograph
Printer and publisher: Imprimerie Chaix, Paris, France
Gift of Geri Mickenberg, 2018. (2018.11.5)
Mucha designed this poster for Sarah Bernhardt, the most famous French actress of his day, to promote her role in the 1894 play Gismonda. He used flat areas of color and pattern, capturing Bernhardt’s character through her dramatic pose and setting rather than realistic detail. Bernhardt loved it so much that she contracted Mucha to design her posters, sets, and costumes for the next six years.
This striking work is an early example of the style called Art Nouveau. While the original poster featured a life-size figure, the smaller version displayed here is from a special 1896 edition printed for collectors.
Chinese
Length, 20th century
Silk crepe plain weave with silk
satin, stem, and couching stitch embroidery
Gift of Susan Opie, 1992. (1992.8)
Emil Lukas
American, born 1964
Expander, 2020
Thread over wood frame with plaster, paint, and nails
Purchase: The Estelle Reninger Fund, 2022. (2022.1)
You may have noticed Emil Lukas’s “thread painting” Expander appearing to change as you approached it. Using simple materials to create a complex piece, the artist wrapped variously colored threads in painstaking fashion around a frame, producing an illusory depth and aura that deceives the eye. Lukas, who is based in northeastern Pennsylvania, works improvisationally but with intention. Every decision—the placement of a single thread a fraction of an inch one way or another, the color of that thread, and the layering—contributes to the overall effect on the viewer’s perception.
Joan Snyder
American, born 1940
Moon Theater, 1986
Oil, acrylic and linen on canvas
Purchase: Gift of Sam Spektor and Ann Berman in Honor of Bernard Berman, 1989. (1989.42)
Moon Theater presents not one moon but a bounty of twenty-six. These are scattered around a stylized tree/crucifix form, a recurrent motif in Snyder’s work that symbolizes life and death. Snyder’s emotional paintings challenged the impersonal nature of male-led art movements like Minimalism, and made her an influential feminist artist. She explained, “Making art is, for me, practicing a religion. … My work is my pride, creates for me a heritage. It is a place to struggle freely at my altar.”
Kay WalkingStick
American, born 1935
Blame the Mountains III, 1998
Oil and brass leaf on canvas (left panel); oil on canvas (right panel)
Gift of David Echols, 2011. (2011.11a, b)
In this painting, the sensual curves of the female figure complement the rugged mountains. Kay WalkingStick’s series Blame the Mountains was inspired by the end of a romantic relationship during a trip to the Dolomites, a mountain range of northern Italy.
An important component of Easton-based WalkingStick’s identity is her Cherokee and Scottish-Irish heritage. She likes to create diptychs—artworks with separate panels that are joined together—which she states are “particularly attractive to those of us who are biracial.”