Brandywine River Museum opens 2 new exhibits: 'Gatecrashers" and Dawoud Bey

CHADDS FORD, Pa. (WPVI) -- The Brandywine River Museum is back with two new exhibitions after about three years of on-and-off closures due to the pandemic and Hurricane Ida.

Karen Rogers brings us the details in this week's 6abc Loves the Arts.

Gatecrashers: The Rise of the Self-Taught Artist in America showcases early 20th century painters who changed the art world.

"That's really looking at how self-taught artists have always pushed the boundaries, challenge the ivory tower," says Katherine Jentleson, Curator of Folk and Self-Taught Art at the High Museum of Art says, "and really succeeded against all odds."

The show begins with three highly celebrated self-taught painters between the first and second World Wars.

There's Anna Mary Robertson, known as "Grandma" Moses and West Chester's Horace Pippin, who painted his harrowing experiences from World War I.

"She became the most famous American painter who ever lived," says Jentleson. "His kind of testament to the sacrifice that so many African American people have made."

And John Kane, a Scottish immigrant who settled in Pittsburgh. He worked in steel and coal before an injury turned him to painting.

The exhibition also showcases artwork created by people hired by the federal government during the Great Depression.

'Night Coming Tenderly, Black' by contemporary photographer Dawoud Bey takes over the museum's newly renovated Strawbridge Family Gallery.

"He's envisioning the flight of an enslaved person along the Underground Railroad," says Thomas Padon, Director of Brandywine River Museum of Art.

The photographs were all taken in Ohio, in a section of the Underground Railroad that led to Lake Erie.

"There would be people that would take you to Canada and therefore you would be free," says Padon, "There's a very visceral feeling."

'Gatecrashers' is on view through Sept. 5 and 'Night Coming Tenderly, Black' through Aug. 31.

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Brandywine River Museum of Art | Instagram | Facebook

1 Hoffman's Mill Road, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania 19317

'Gatecrashers: The Rise of the Self-Taught Artist'- through September 5, 2022

Dawoud Bey: 'Night Coming Tenderly, Black' - through August 31, 2022