USA Today has named the Fairmount Park Art Association as one of the 10 great places to see art enhance nature. The list was compiled by Rebecca Reynolds, an art historian and former Sharf Sculpture Fellow at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She is the author of the exhibition catalogue Manship: Paul, John, Margaret – A Retrospective, and was one of the featured voices for the Art Association’s Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO program about Manship’s Aero Memorial.

Click here to read the entire article.

Join us for a new kind of date night! The Art Association invites you to spend an evening amid our city’s public art. Tuck in for a catered picnic dinner, warm your hands over a locally-brewed cup of coffee, and be “reintroduced” to Philadelphia’s exceptional collection of public art.

The event, catered by Capriccio at Cafe Cret, highlights the Art Association’s Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO program, which invites passersby to stop, look, listen and experience public art in a new light. Experience the Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO website, audio slideshows, and mobile app that tours some of Philadelphia’s most beloved outdoor sculptures.

This free event will take place rain or shine.
Please RSVP in advance – spaces are limited.

DATE: Friday, September 23, 2011
TIME: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
LOCATION: Capriccio at Cafe Cret, 16th Street & the Parkway

Click here to RSVP online!

The Fairmount Park Art Association’s Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO program received an Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) at its annual conference in Richmond, VA. The awards recognize outstanding projects, exhibits, and publications in the field of state and local history from across the country. Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO was praised for its multi-disciplinary nature and was one of the only winning projects presented by a visual arts organization.

A list of all 2011 winners can be downloaded here.

Sculpture Saturdays Presented by PNC Arts Alive is back for Fall 2011! Join the Fairmount Park Art Association for five Saturdays this September and October for FREE family-friendly SCULPTURE WORKSHOPS, iPOD TOURS, and LIVE MUSIC along Philadelphia’s Kelly Drive. Enjoy hands-on activities for all ages, including artist-led sculpture workshops for kids, self-guided iPod tours, and live performances from The Adam Monaco Band, Trinidelphia, KyoDaiko and more. There’s something for everybody to enjoy while discovering public art in in Philadelphia.

View pictures of “Sculpture Saturdays” on our Flickr page (updated weekly)

DATES:

>> Five Saturdays: September 10th, 17th & 24th, and October 15th & 22nd, 2011

>> Dates may be canceled if it rains – check here for updates!

TIME: 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., Live music performances daily at 11:00 a.m. & 1:00 p.m.

LOCATION: Kelly Drive, Philadelphia, PA

>> Sculpture workshops and iPod tours will take place at Cosmic Café at Lloyd Hall (On Kelly Drive between Boathouse Row and The Philadelphia Museum of Art)

>> Live music performances will take place at The Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial Sculpture Garden (Along Kelly Drive, just north of Boathouse Row)

SCHEDULED ACTIVITIES (ONGOING EACH WEEK):

• 
• Kid’s Sculpture Workshops: Each week, kids can stop by our big green PNC Arts Alive tent near Lloyd Hall for artist-led sculpture-making activities inspired by Philadelphia’s public art;

• Outdoor Sculpture Fun Guide and Art Kits for Kids: Children will receive a professionally illustrated kids sculpture booklet and art kit to take home;

• iPod Tours: Borrow a free iPod Touch from our headquarters at Cosmic Café to take a self-guided tour and experience the Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO app and learn more about the public art in Fairmount Park;

• Public Art Ambassadors: A team of Public Art Ambassadors – our “mobile docent squad” – in bright green shirts will be on hand to answer questions about public art, distribute Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO maps, and help guide participants interested in experiencing the program on their cell phones, smart phones, or mp3 players.

• Live music performances will take place each Saturday at the Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial at 11am and 1pm. Performers include:

The Adam Monaco Band

Trinidelphia

KyoDaiko

AMLA

Marc Silver and The Stonethrowers

MINAS

The Rhodes Trio

Alokli West African Dance

Click here for a complete schedule of performances

For more information, contact the Fairmount Park Art Association at 215.546.7550 or email audio@fpaa.org.

Sculpture Saturdays is made possible by a special grant from PNC Arts Alive. PNC Arts Alive is a five-year, $5 million investment from the PNC Foundation that supports visual and performing arts groups with the goal of increasing arts access and engagement. For more information on PNC Arts Alive and the grant recipients visit www.pncartsalive.com

The Fairmount Park Art Association is proud to announce that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a grant of $170,000 to the Art Association for Phase Two of Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO as part of their America’s Historical and Cultural Organizations Implementation grant program. The funding will enable us to add 30 more stops to the existing 35 stop program, including additional sites along the Parkway and West Fairmount Park — almost doubling the current scope of this award-winning program. More information about the NEH and a list of all awarded grants can be found here.

When: June 11-12, 2011
Where: Schuylkill Banks

The Fairmount Park Art Association will be on hand during this year’s Art in the Open festival. Join us for Art in the Open’s “Family Day” on June 11, 2011 for free sculpture making workshops for children or stop by our table on Kelly Drive to pick up a free Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO map.

Event Details:

Sculpture Making Workshops for Kids
Saturday June 11, 2011
10am to 1pm
Schuylkill Banks Park (proposed Skate Park area)

As part of Art in the Open’s Family Day, the Fairmount Park Art Association will offer free sculpture making workshops inspired by Philadelphia’s impressive collection of outdoor sculpture. Children of all ages are invited to visit our green tent at Schuylkill Banks to make their own sculptures and pick up a Kids’ Outdoor Sculpture Fun Guide.

Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO
Saturday & Sunday June 11-12, 2011
10am to 2pm
Kelly Drive near the boathouses

During Art in the Open, the Art Association will have “Public Art Ambassadors” on hand along Kelly Drive to distribute Museum Without Walls^TM: AUDIO maps and answer questions about our award-winning outdoor sculpture interpretive audio program.

Art in the Open is a citywide event that celebrates artists, their inspirations for creating art, and their relationships with the urban environment. For more information about Art in the Open, including featured artists and events, visit www.artintheopenphila.org.

At the Arts & Business Council Luncheon 2011, Arts Magnifique!, the Fairmount Park Art Association received the PNC Arts Alive Award for Arts Innovation in Honor of Peggy Amsterdam for our Museum Without Walls: AUDIO program. Over 1200 people from the region’s arts and cultural and business communities were in attendance at the event.

Click here for the full story!

NEW AWARD HONORS PEGGY AMSTERDAM

PNC honors the legacy of Peggy Amsterdam, past president of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, with today’s presentation of the inaugural PNC Arts Alive Award for Arts Innovation. Amsterdam’s stellar work in both advocating and promoting greater citizen participation in the arts inspired the creation of this award, which will be presented to a visual and/or performing arts group that has demonstrated an innovative approach to increasing arts access and engagement.

Commenting about the importance of the award, Bill Mills, president of PNC, Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, says: “Investing in innovative arts programs is a key step in ensuring the future of our local economy.”

PNC Arts Alive is The PNC Foundation’s five-year, $5-million program designed to support visual and performing arts organizations. The goal is to increase engagement in the arts, expand audiences and make the arts more accessible to diverse audiences in the Philadelphia metropolitan area and Southern New Jersey.

Posted by Penny Balkin Bach

(Click here for the full post)

Public art can be one of a city’s most overlooked and under-appreciated cultural assets; but it’s also an ideal introductory cultural experience because it’s accessible “on the street,” visible at any time, free to all, and diverse in content – no tickets, no barriers, no time limits.

We created the Fairmount Park Art Association’s Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO program in Philadelphia to call attention to these works of art – always on view, but often unobserved.

We wanted to appeal broadly to culture seekers as well as non-traditional arts audiences by making engagement with public art fascinating, informative, rewarding, and fun.

Reaching the “spontaneous user” – our defined target group – represents an extraordinary opportunity unique to public art. This person typically has not planned ahead, paid a museum admission, or signed up in advance for a cultural tour.

The program so far has 35 stops for 51 sculptures feature nearly 100 “voices” from all walks of life, including: artists, educators, curators, scientists, writers, historians, civic leaders, and family members – all with personal connections to the sculptures.

We developed an “authentic voice” model, which distinguishes our audio program from others that feature a single guide, narrator or interpreter. Listening is almost like eavesdropping into a fascinating conversation.

This is not a traditional audio “tour” – there’s no beginning or end, and you can listen to one program at a time or make your own sequence.

Given the rapid evolution of technology, our goal was to develop a conceptually sound, content-rich program that would take advantage of multiple platforms and be adaptable to new technologies over time.

Our current delivery method covers the full spectrum – from simply standing in front of a sculpture using a cell phone, to audio download, iPhone and Android mobile app, QR code, and streaming audio and audio slideshows on the official website.

On-site interpretive signage and printed maps complement the listening experience. Attention-grabbing 3-4 minute audio segments have been produced in collaboration with a team of award-winning independent audio producers.

The overall program explores personal and cultural connections to the art, while offering insights into the artists and their processes, what the sculptures represent, the histories surrounding the works, and why the pieces were commissioned and installed at specific sites in Philadelphia.

While this may seem straightforward on the surface, it is the richness and unexpectedness of multiple voices and relationships that make the stories come to life.

Renowned sculptor Mark di Suvero discusses the universality of the world’s most recognizable sculpture, Rodin’s The Thinker. The leading forensic sculptor in the country, Frank Bender, tells how President Garfield’s death mask was likely used for his memorial sculpture.

Samuel Hart Jones Jr, great-grandson of the African American State legislator Samuel Beecher Hart, conveys his family’s passionate involvement with the commissioning of the All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors in 1927. Artist Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds speaks about Stone Age in America and stereotypical images of Native Americans.

At the monument to Kopernick, listeners hear from Derek Pitts, Chief Astronomer at the Franklin Institute. And James “Jimmy” Binns, lawyer and former Pennsylvania Boxing Commissioner who played himself in two Rocky movies, gives his inside scoop on the “Rocky” statue.

Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO has been supported by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage through the Heritage Philadelphia Program and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The impact of the program has been both positive and measurable; and, for the first time ever, we have quantitative tools to track an otherwise elusive public art audience.

Amazingly, last summer the total number of visits to our websites increased 300%!

Note: PAN Councilmember Penny Balkin Bach will be presenting on the panel, Public Art | Public Awareness: Communication & Advocacy Strategies for Public Art at the upcoming Public Art Preconference, June 15-16.

 

The Paris Inspiration, a PIFA Theme

Artists flocked from all reaches of the globe racing to be a part of Paris’ artistic movements in the early 20th century – but at the same time creative minds from France made their mark on Philadelphia with the realization of our grand boulevard, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

This is Philadelphia - not Paris! A recent night shot of the Parkway. Photo: J. Holder, courtesy of the Parkway Council Foundation.

Conceived as early as 1871 and substantially completed by 1929, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway stands as a major triumph in urban planning with unmistakable French influence. Among its notable designers were the French architect Paul Philippe Crét and the French landscape architect and planner, Jacques Gréber, who modeled the Parkway in the early 20^th century after the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Like the Parisian boulevard, the Parkway is broad, lush with greenery, and brimming with grand buildings, fountains, and monuments. Its dramatic end point at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is notably reminiscent of the Champs-Élysées terminus at the Arc de Triomphe.

Left: The Benjamin Franklin Parkway, looking toward the entrance of Fairmount Park at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo: Caitlin Martin. Right: A noticeably similar Champs-Élysées and Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Photo: www.sxc.hu.

Well aware of the Parkway’s resemblance to Paris, Gréber declared, “I am glad to say that, if by this work the city of Paris may be enabled to bring its sister in America the inspiration of what makes Paris so attractive to visitors, it will be the first opportunity of Paris to pay a little of the great debt of thankfulness for what Philadelphia and its citizens have done for France during the last three years.” (Quoted in Department of the Art Jury, Eighth Annual Report (1918), p. 8.)

 

A Civic Movement of International Proportion

Prompted by the “City Beautiful” movement of the late 19^th century, prominent Philadelphians at the time began lobbying for a broad boulevard that would run diagonally from the heart of the Center City to its natural surroundings at Fairmount Park. Such a boulevard would ease congestion, beautify the city, and provide some needed relief for William Penn’s 17^th century grid-street layout. The first serious proposal emerged in 1891, yet the realization of the Parkway faced years of political, social and economic obstacles that prolonged its development. Since the Parkway was not included in William Penn’s original city plan, many residences and businesses would need to be cleared for its path, which stirred much public and legal outcry.

Left: Photograph from 1907 when the Parkway was first proposed, taken from the top of City Hall tower. Right: Photograph from 1919 when the Parkway was under construction, also taken from the top of City Hall tower in 1919. Images photographed by Gary McKinnis.

Demolition in 1907. Photo courtesy of the City of Philadelphia, Department of Records.

Though preliminary proposals for the Parkway had been produced and even added to the City Plan in 1906, it was not until the Fairmount Park Art Association commissioned a comprehensive plan for the “Fairmount Parkway” in 1907 that the project would finally launch. (Its name was officially changed to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in 1937.) The Art Association gathered a team of architectural experts – Horace Trumbauer, Clarence Zantzinger and his partners, and Paul Crét – who created a detailed parkway design that was added to the City Plan in 1909. Ground officially broke on the project in 1907, with the demolition of approximately 1300 properties that the city had acquired for the project. Construction on the Parkway did not begin until ten years later in 1917, when French landscape architect Jacques Gréber submitted a revised plan to the Commissioners of Fairmount Park.

Left to Right: 1.) The Parkway as placed on the City Plan, April 9, 1906 2.) The Parkway as shown on a plan made by Trumbauer, Zantzinger and Crét for the Fairmount Park Art Association, December 9, 1907 3.) The Parkway as shown on the plan made by Jacques Gréber for the Commissioners of Fairmount Park in 1917

 

Crét and Gréber

Having both been trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Paul Crét and Jacques Gréber were strong proponents of the Beaux-Arts style, and like much of American architecture from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, their work greatly reflects the French architectural approach. Crét was a French born architect who introduced the Beaux-Arts method of instruction at the architecture school of the University of Pennsylvania, where he headed the Department of Architecture for over 30 years. He went on to design the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and the Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial sculpture garden along Kelly Drive. Gréber was a famous French landscape architect and city planner, perhaps best known for being chief architect and planner for the World Exposition of 1937 in Paris.

Left: A 1910 photograph of Paul Crét. Photo courtesy of University of Pennsylvania Archives. Right: Jacques Gréber (right) receiving the Art Association's Medal of Honor in 1962. Photo courtesy of the Fairmount Park Art Association.

A number of well-known architects contributed to the development of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, but it was largely planned and brought to completion by Paul Crét and Jacques Gréber. Though Crét was involved in developing the initial 1907 proposal commissioned by the Art Association, Gréber was engaged in 1917 by the Fairmount Park Commission to create a more formal Parkway plan – one that would that would improve upon the Crét-Zantzinger-Traumbauer version. The decision was of course met with resentment from Crét, who saw Gréber as taking credit for a project that he largely considered his own.

Place de La Concorde, Paris. Hôtel de Crillon on the left, Hôtel de la Marine on the right. Photo: Tristan Nitot.

Gréber’s Parkway design was largely based on Crét’s proposal, but departed from it in several key ways. In Gréber’s plan, two linear segments of the Parkway were added with Logan Square designated at the center point: The wider segment runs from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to Logan Square, and the narrower from Logan Square to City Hall. Logan Square was an open square at the time, but Gréber envisioned it as Logan “Circle” – a large traffic circle that would emulate the Place de la Concorde in Paris. Gréber also proposed two buildings near Logan Square in his plan – the Free Library and Municipal Court – suggesting the Hôtel de Crillon and the Hôtel de la Marine of the Place de la Concorde in Paris. He also advocated creating a proper terminus by relocating The Washington Monument to a site below the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In Gréber’s design, the Parkway became less an urban boulevard and more like a “wedge of park.”

 

The Parkway is a Tour de Force!

Above: Sketch by Jacques Gréber from the top of City Hall Tower to Logan Square and Logan Circle, and to the western end of the Parkway toward the Art Museum.

In 1919, Gréber’s plan was approved by a city-appointed Art Jury – the forerunner of The Art Commission. Gréber’s office in Paris had produced elaborate sketches and watercolor renderings of his Parkway designs, and in 1919, the Fairmount Park Art Association published a pictorial documentation of the Parkway that included his drawings. Art Association President Charles J. Cohen affirmed, “…the Trustees take pleasure in presenting this pictorial record of its growth and development…designed to furnish, a direct, dignified and interesting approach from the heart of the business and administrative quarter of the city, through the region of educational activities grouped around Logan Square, to the artistic center to be developed around the Fairmount Plaza, at the entrance to Philadelphia’s largest and most beautiful park.”

Above: The Rodin Museum opens in 1929, designed by Crét and Gréber. Photo courtesy of the City of Philadelphia, Department of Records.

Crét and Gréber collaborated on the design of The Rodin Museum. Commissioned in 1926 by movie magnate and philanthropist Jules E. Mastbaum, it was completed in 1929 and contains the largest collection of works by French sculptor August Rodin outside of Paris. Rodin’s Thinker sits in front of the entrance to the museum, a gate modeled after the 18th-century façade at Château D’Issy, which the artist had installed at his property at Meudon, France, where he is buried.

Over the following years, Crét and Gréber’s vision of a Philadelphia Champs-Élysées would begin to take shape. A number of cultural and civic buildings were erected along the Parkway, including the Franklin Institute, The Rodin Museum, the Free Library and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Philadelphia Museum of Art – a major feature of the Parkway proposals – was completed in 1928 by the Fairmount Park Commission appointed architects Borie, Trumbauer, and Zantzinger. As Gréber had envisioned, a fountain, Swann Memorial Fountain, was installed at Logan Square in 1924, and The Washington Monument was relocated in 1928 to front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Left: The Washington Monument in 1911 at the Green Street entrance to Fairmount Park before relocation. Photo: City of Philadelphia, Department of Records. Right: The Washington Monument after relocation to the front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo: Howard Brunner.

As strong supporters of the “City Beautiful” movement, the Fairmount Park Art Association has continued to advocate for good civic design and the commissioning and placement of outdoor sculpture along the Parkway, including The Shakespeare Memorial (1926) in front of the Free Library at Logan Square, the acquisition and installation of The Lion Fighter and The Amazon at the base of the steps leading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and more recently the placement of Mark di Suvero’s Iroquois near 25th and the Parkway. Continuing the French theme, Joan of Arc by French artist Emmanuel Frémiet was gilded and relocated to the Parkway at 25th Street in 1960. Frémiet was invited to create the sculpture because he had completed a similar work for the Place des Pyramides in Paris.

Left: Image of Emmanuel Frémiet. Photo: Fairmount Park Art Association's 50th Anniversary Publication, 1922. Right: Frémiet's sculpture, Joan of Arc. Photo: Caitlin Martin.

Over the past few years the Art Association has worked with the Center City District to light and sign the sculptures along the Parkway, and in 2010 launched the Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO program to further interpret the public artworks located there. To access information about the sculptures along the Parkway, Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO is available for free via cell phone, mobile app, and streaming audio on the web.

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway continues to develop and evolve, including recent landscape and streetscape improvements by the City and Center City District. The French connection will be further strengthened with the relocation of the Barnes Foundation collection in 2012, with its renowned collection of French impressionist and post impressionist artwork.

A recent photo of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway from the Daily News during a 4th of July celebration. Photo courtesy of the Parkway Council Foundation.

For the complete and definitive story of the Parkway, consult Brownlee, Building the City Beautiful: The Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1989).

For more information about the Parkway, visit the Parkway Museums District.

By Allison Stadd

(Click here for the full post)

The onset of spring is an obvious deterrent to staying indoors, but neglecting the vast cultural offerings of Philadelphia isn’t an option, either.

The Fairmount Park Art Association has come up with a solution. In honor of the upcoming Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, the organization has created a free downloadable audio tour entitled “Museum Without Walls™.”

The tour, which works on any device and is available 24 hours a day, lets you explore 51 sculptures at a total of 35 stops along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Kelly Drive. Along the way, nearly 100 unique voices narrate. You get to hear from people who are connected to each piece, either by knowledge or experience.

The PIFA connection: the Benjamin Franklin Parkway was designed after French landscape architect Jacques Gréber’s grand 1917 vision of a tree-lined boulevard accented by fountains and public sculptures. Following PIFA’s Parisian theme, “Museum Without Walls” is tailored to focus on the Parkway’s crucial tie to Paris, including historic records and images about the planning and construction of the Parkway.

Experience Philadelphia’s public art in a brand new way, just in time for the warm weather and the largest arts festival the city has ever seen.