The Allentown Art Museum is honoring our nation’s 250th anniversary throughout 2026, spotlighting a work from our collection each month in our weekly eblasts and on our social-media channels. Read these stories of resilience, art, and community below, then visit the Museum to see the works firsthand. Beginning June 4, don’t miss the special exhibition Revolution Retold: Commemorating American Independence in Art and Design, exploring different approaches across history to depicting iconic Revolutionary figures and events.
January 2026
Our first image of the year is this iconic painting that’s on view in our American galleries. Artist Gifford Reynolds Beal captures a powerful moment from local history: cavalrymen bringing the Liberty Bell to Allentown in September 1777. To protect it from being melted down by the British for ammunition, the Bell was one of eleven evacuated from Philadelphia. Beal imagined the dramatic scene as soldiers and townspeople strain together to lift the heavy bell from the wagon before hiding it in the basement of Zion’s Reformed Church on Hamilton Street, just a few blocks from our current location.
This painting was created as a study for one of ten murals commissioned for the Allentown Post Office as part of the Works Progress Administration, a federal program during the Great Depression that supported artists while documenting local history.
Gifford Reynolds Beal (American, 1879-1956), Hiding the Liberty Bell in Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1938, oil on Masonite. Allentown Art Museum: Gift of the family of Gifford Beal, 2006.
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February 2026
Happy George Washington’s birthday! This textile from our collection is part of a series of printed fabrics produced in honor of the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth on February 22, 1732.
H.R. Mallinson & Company, Inc., “Liberty Bell” dress fabric from the George Washington Bicentennial series (detail), 1932, printed silk crepe. Allentown Art Museum: Gift of Kate Fowler Merle Smith, 1978. (1978.26.461)
Rather than depict Washington himself, this textile pairs symbols of the American Revolution—circles of stars, the Liberty Bell—with everyday objects from the colonial past, such as tricorn hats, dishes, and candles.
This combination of motifs reflects the fascination with colonial history and décor during the early decades of the twentieth century. The George Washington Bicentennial Commission capitalized on this interest, encouraging Americans to “become more familiar with the scenes of Colonial days” as well as Washington’s life.
Additional material relating to George Washington’s bicentennial will be on view this summer in our exhibition Revolution Retold: Commemorating American Independence in Art and Design, opening on June 4, 2026.
March 2026
We continue our celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary by highlighting this work by Ricardo Viera, an artist and curator who made significant contributions to the arts in the Lehigh Valley.
Ricardo Viera (American, born Cuba, 1945–2020), Islas A II, 1973–74, hand-colored lithograph. Allentown Art Museum: Gift of Lucille Bunin Askin, 1976. (1976.37)
Viera immigrated to the United States from Cuba in 1962, an experience that had a profound impact on his artistic practice. He produced several prints on abstract islas (islands) like the one here during the 1970s and 1980s. Bold splashes of color imposed onto a grid recall geographical maps of Cuba. The erratic energy of the lines may embody the artist’s turbulent displacement from his home.
Viera made this print around the time he moved to the Lehigh Valley, where he served as director of the Lehigh University Art Gallery from 1974 through 2018. It entered the Museum’s collection just a few years later, during the last major U.S. anniversary celebration year, the 1976 bicentennial.