Romance fills the air this summer as “The Color of the Moon: Lunar Painting in American Art” lands at the Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown.
On view from June 1 through Sept. 8, “The Color of the Moon” showcases more than 60 paintings and works on paper that illuminate man’s eternal fascination with the moon and the long and enduring relationship between art and lunar science.
The exhibition, featuring loans from museums and private collections throughout the U.S., coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission when American astronauts traveled across the skies to step onto the pitted surface of the moon in July 1969.
“The Color of the Moon” traces the positions, places and phases of the moon across more than 150 years of art, and explores the Romanticism of man’s relationship with the moon.
The display is presented in three broad groupings:
“Popular Moon from Myth to Destination,” ranging from mythological scenes of the goddess Diana by Samuel F. B. Morse to the Apollo 11 blast-off, painted by Jamie Wyeth as part of NASA’s art program;
“The Romantic Moon from the Hudson River School to 20th-Century Modernists,” featuring moonlit towers by Thomas Cole and a shimmering abstraction by Arthur Dove; and “The Moody Moon from Forest Glades to the Open Sea,” with paintings by Edward Bannister, Ralph Blakelock, and George Inness, revealing the deep preoccupation with spirituality and moonlight at the end of the 19th century.
The exhibition was co-curated by Laura Vookles, chair of the Hudson River Museum’s Curatorial Department, and Bartholomew F. Bland, executive director, Lehman College Art Gallery, The City University of New York, and co-organized by the Michener Art Museum and the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, N.Y.
Featured artists include: Susie M. Barstow, Albert Bierstadt, Oscar Bluemner, Charles Burchfield, Frederic Edwin Church, Joseph Cornell, Jasper Francis Cropsey, Arthur Dove, Sanford Robinson Gifford, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, George Inness, Roy Lichtenstein, Norman Rockwell, Edward Steichen, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and Marguerite Thompson Zorach.
Complementing the exhibition is a series of dynamic programs, including a film series through a partnership with the County Theater; a lecture series; and a Star Party in collaboration with the Bucks-Mont Astronomical Association. Detailed information and tickets can be found at
MichenerArtMuseum.org.
