UPCOMING EVENTS:
Saturday, April 5 at 1 p.m. -- GHOSTLY GALLERY: ARTISTS AND THEIR PATRONS at Laurel Hill Cemetery East -- 3822 Ridge Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19132
Besides Civil War generals, Philadelphia mayors, and Gilded Age millionaires, Laurel Hill Cemetery East is the final resting place of some of the city's finest artists, as well as the self-made men who collected their works. We'll visit the graves of Thomas Sully, the "American Thomas Lawrence," who painted over 2,300 portraits during his long and busy career, including Queen Victoria; William Emlen Cresson, a promising artist who died at the age of 25 but whose name lives on in the Cresson Traveling Scholarship at PAFA; Nicola Monachesi, who painted the frescos at St. Augustine's Catholic Church; and modern sculptor Ruth Zafrir. We'll also visit the graves of some of Philadelphia's greatest collectors: P.A.B. Widener and his son Joseph, whose collection was donated to the National Gallery of Art; Joseph Harrison, Jr., steam locomotive manufacturer, who donated his collection to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Charles Knox Smith, founder of the Woodmere Art Gallery in Chestnut Hill; and Joseph Moore, Jr., founder and benefactor of what is now the Moore College of Art and Design. For more information or to purchase tickets, click here.
Wednesday, April 9 at 7 p.m. -- ROGUES' GALLERY: WHEN RICH PEOPLE SPEND GOOD MONEY ON BAD ART at the Old York Road Historical Society -- Abington Friends Meeting, 520 Meetinghouse Road, Jenkintown
Since time immemorial, new money has chased after old art to buy its way into high society, usually without asking too many questions. In “Rogues’ Gallery: When Rich People Spend Good Money on Bad Art,” Thomas Keels traces the intertwined history of art forgery and social striving, with an emphasis on Philadelphia collectors P.A.B. Widener, John G. Johnson, and Edward T. Stotesbury. Keels will also discuss how during World War II, Whitemarsh Hall, the former Stotesbury estate, was leased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a warehouse and laboratory for thousands of its rarest works of art. Admission is free and open to the public, and will be accessible both in-person and via Zoom. For more information, click here.
Wednesday, April 16 at 6:30 p.m. -- PHILADELPHIA'S GOLDEN AGE OF RETAIL at Wissahickon Valley Public Library Ambler Branch -- 209, Race Street, Ambler PA
The upcoming closure of Macy's Center City prompts memories of the days when Philadelphia was a mercantile mecca, and Market Street East was lined with department stores from City Hall to Eighth Street. Co-authors Thomas Keels and Lawrence M. Arrigale will discuss how visionary merchants like John Wanamaker, Ellis Gimbel, and others, pioneered the concept of "retailtainment," using every trick in the boom from dancing fountains to boxing midgets to lure patrons in their doors. This program is free and open to the public.
Sunday, May 4 at 1 p.m. -- DESIGNING FOR THE DEAD: ART & ARCHITECTURE at Laurel Hill Cemetery East -- 3822 Ridge Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19132
Noted architects like John Notman, William Strickland, Frank Furness, John J. McArthur, C.C. Zantzinger, Horace Trumbauer, and Napoleon LeBrun competed fiercely for the chance to design for the dead. Join us on a walking tour of Laurel Hill East, where we will see monuments created by these early architects, as well as artists such as Alexander Milne Calder, his son Alexander Stirling Calder, and sculptress Harriet Frishmuth, whose works grace many of Laurel Hill’s memorials. The tour will examine changing tastes and fashions in grave markers over the past two centuries, from the classical obelisks and urns of the Federal period to the richly decorated crosses of the Gothic Revival, and the massive mausoleums of the Gilded Age. For more information or to purchase tickets, click here.
For information on talks, fees, references, etc., please contact Tom via the Contact page on this site or email him at mailto:thkeels@gmail.com.