Join Glencairn Museum online every day from Dec. 1 through 25, as the door to a new work of art will “open” each day to reveal images of Christmas art from the Glencairn Museum collection.
Many of these depictions of the Nativity and infancy of Jesus Christ date to the medieval period and include paintings, illuminated manuscripts, sculptures and stained-glass windows. Others are original works of art commissioned by Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn during the 20th century, including a large, three-dimensional Nativity scene produced in Bryn Athyn in the 1920s.
Admission to “Follow the Star: A 2021 Advent Calendar” is free. Visit GlencairnMuseum.org daily, or follow Glencairn’s social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr) to receive each day’s artwork in your newsfeed.
Also offered for free is “A Nativity for the Eisenhower White House,” an illustrated talk via Zoom on the life and art of Hanna Weil Fischer-Binder, given by Mark Sfirri, an artist, professor, author, and curator, from 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 2.
Reservations are required 24 hours in advance. To receive a Zoom link to the event, register online or call 267-502-2600.
In the 1950s, Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn commissioned Fischer-Binder, a multi-talented Bucks County artist, to carve three sets of wooden Nativity figures for the East Room of the Eisenhower White House. The three scenes (the Wise Men gazing at the Star of Bethlehem, the Annunciation to the Shepherds, and the Nativity) were located beside the Christmas tree.
Fischer-Binder also made Nativity figures for members of the Pitcairn family. Earlier in her artistic career, from the 1920s until the late 1930s, she was known for her ivory carvings in her native country, Germany.
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