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“Presenting American Art Anew” – Talk & Dessert
August 5, 2023 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
$10.00 – $15.00
Presenting American Art Anew
at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
‘Well done is better than well said’
Saturday, August 5, 2023
7:30 pm
Great Stone Dwelling – Meeting Room
Join us for a presentation by Alexandra A. Kirtley, Montgomery-Garvan Curator of American Decorative Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, “Presenting American Art Anew at the Philadelphia Museum of Art”.
In May 2021, the Philadelphia Museum of Art opened nearly 90,000 square feet of additional gallery spaces— the culmination of two decades of planning, design, and construction. As the first expansion and reinstallation since 1976, this so-called “Core Project” was completed in 2021 after four years of construction, and the newly reimagined spaces are the result of the renovation, reorganization, and interior expansion of the museum’s land-mark 1928 Frank Gehry building. The nine new galleries are painted in vibrant colors and emanate off a central spine with an enfilade, and collections have been reinstalled to tell a more authentic and inclusive history of the art—the artists and artisans who made it and the patrons who commissioned it. This presentation will explore the Core Project, highlighting the process by which curators choose what to display and, most importantly, how the new narratives evolved after close examination of the collections.
Dessert, coffee and tea will be served.
Museum Members – $10.00
Non-members – $15.00
Advance registration suggested.
Want to know more about Alexandra Kirtley?
Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley (Philadelphia, PA) is the Montgomery-Garvan Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she began her tenure in 2001. At PMA, she has orchestrated major acquisitions and curated numerous exhibitions, notably the retrospective Colonial Philadelphia Porcelain: The Art of Bonnin & Morris (2008) and the groundbreaking Classical Splendor: Painted Furniture for a Grand Philadelphia House (2016, with conservator Peggy Olley). In May 2021, Kirtley was co-curator of the newly located, reinstalled, and reinterpreted galleries for early American art that opened to much fanfare and critical acclaim. Kirtley earned a A.B. from Hamilton College and an M.A. from the University of Delaware/Winter- thur Program in Early American Cultu