Winterthur exhibit looks at Pennsylvania German art
It's the camels that will grab your attention in Winterthur Museum's new exhibit about the folk art of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Anyone even slightly familiar with that art, which is common all over the MidAtlantic, will recognize the birds, tulips and hearts in cheery reds, blues and yellows that appear repeatedly in "A Colorful Folk: Pennsylvania Germans and the Art of Everyday Life."
And then they will come across the tulip-poplar chest painted by Heinrich Otto for Johannes Miller of Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. Flanking the medallion bearing Johannes' name are two camels merrily trodding across a desert.
"The camels are totally unique," says Lisa Minardi, curator of the exhibition. "It's been attracting a lot of oohs and ahhs from visitors when they come in."
Nobody knows why Otto used camels, although whimsy is an important aspect of Pennsylvania German art. There was nothing going on in history or literature at the time to make camels a thing of fascination, Minardi says.
"If I had to guess, I would guess it was coming from a Biblical image or an almanac. I've seen some German almanacs talking about hippopotamuses along with an illustration," Minardi said. "I wish we knew what the artist was thinking."
"A Colorful Folk" features 125 objects including painted furniture, textiles, metal work, redware pottery and 51 frakturs, which are elaborately illustrated certificates. They were used by the Lutheran, German Reformed, Mennonite, Moravian and Schwenkfelder faiths.
Reminiscent of the illuminated manuscripts created by monks, frakturs became popular in Germany in the 1500s, came to the U.S. with immigrants and were made until after World War II. Created with watercolors and elaborate lettering, they often served as birth and marriage certificates, or marked other occasions such as baptisms and graduations. They were usually painted by school masters, and some ministers.
Several of the frakturs in "A Colorful Folk" came from a collection donated last year by the estate of Pastor Frederick Sheely Weiser. It included 200 textiles and 121 fraktur, bringing Winterthur's collection of fraktur to 500.
Minardi recommends that visitors seek out an ornate fraktur made by Mennonite schoolmaster Andreas Kolb about 1785 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, to see the power and majesty of the works. The religious text is wound through and around birds, flowers and people.
It is shown side-by-side with a certificate made by Johann Adam Eyer, Kolb's protégé, with motifs copied from the religious text and additional patriotic imagery.
While scholars love to argue about whether the illustrations symbolize anything, Minardi says she falls into the camp that says they mostly are just pretty.
"There are some cases where it's clearly symbolic, like religious iconography, but I think on most pieces, it's just decorative," Minardi says.
Also of interest in the show are the largest fraktur known to exist, a double-sheet spiritual clockworks by Friedrich Krebs measuring nearly 16 by 25 inches, and the only known fraktur made for a Delawarean, Samuel McNulty, who married into a Pennsylvania German family.
Frakturs also are the stars of the show in two Philadelphia exhibits. At the Pennsylvania Museum of Art, "Drawn with Spirit, Pennsylvania German Fraktur from the Joan and Victor Johnson Collection" will be on view until April 26. And the Free Library of Philadelphia will offer "Framing Fraktur" through July 16.
Winterthur's last comprehensive exhibit focusing on Pennsylvania Dutch art was more than 30 years ago.
"There's been a lot of new discoveries and a lot of new research since then," Minardi says. Many of the objects in the show have never been on display before.
This exhibit was chosen to follow last year's blockbuster "Costumes of Downton Abbey" because the museum hopes to strike a balance between exhibits that have mass appeal, as the Downton one did, and exhibits that feature collections that Winterthur is known for, such as its Pennsylvania Dutch pieces.
"We are one of the leading institutions for collecting Pennsylvania German decorative arts, so this is very much a core focus for us," Minardi says. "We certainly are hoping that many of the new members who came to us last year because of Downton Abbey are going to come back to see this exhibit."
"A Colorful Folk" is divided into five sections: Looking Closely, Home, Church, School and Nation. They are meant to reflect the ways that German immigrants, who made up 40 percent of the area's population by 1795, incorporated art and design into their lives.
The first section introduces the many groups who made up the community and ranged from the minimalist lifestyle of the Amish to the much more plush life of Quakers and Lutherans. The other four sections look at how decorated objects were used every day.
Some of the items are particularly amusing when contrasted with modern life. Those include a privy bag, used to store scrap paper in an outhouse in York County, Pennsylvania.The home section looks at cooking, gardening, cleaning and clothing. It includes a vignette made to look like a Pennsylvania German parlor, with a cast iron stove in the corner, complete with table, benches, hangings and more so visitors have an idea of what an interior would look like.
On display is an exquisitely embroidered handkerchief and wedding apron, which were a tradition of the Lancaster County Mennonites. A decorated hand towel that would have been sewn simply for decoration hangs on an original door, with the original hooks.
The National section looks at objects with political imagery. A tall maple clock is inlaid with images from the Pennsylvania coat of arms. Nearby sites a chest with a painted spread-wing eagle. On top of that is a remarkable carved and painted statue of an by itinerant artist Wilhelm Schimmel of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
While a dozen people and institutions loaned objects to the show, all three of the eagle pieces belonged to H.F. du Pont, who founded Winterthur and was known for his love of American decor. The du Pont family in general likes images of eagles because the ship that carried their family to this country was called "The Eagle."
Minardi hopes people leave the exhibit understanding more about the breadth of Pennsylvania German culture.
"A lot of people think of Pennsylvania German, and they think of the Amish or the Quakers, and this exhibit really tries to show the full gamut of the culture and how these people had a penchant for decorating everything from a simple fork to the weather vanes on top of their houses," Minardi says. "Everything was decorated. There was this love of beauty and design in the simplest of objects used in every day life."
Contact Betsy Price at (302) 324-2884 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
If you go
"A Colorful Folk: Pennsylvania Germans and the Art of Everyday Life," 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Tuesday-Sunday; Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, 5105 Kennett Pike (Route 52), Greenville; $20 adults; $18 for students and seniors; $5 for ages 2–11. Call (302) 888-4600; winterthur.org.
Upcoming Conference: Fraktur and the Everyday Lives of Germans in Pennsylvania and the Atlantic World, 1683–1850 will take place March 5-8 with international scholars discussing fraktur and topics ranging feaglerom immigration, education and religious practices to music, farming, medicine and the occult. Go to www.mceas.org for more information or to register.
Related Exhibits: Related exhibitions of Pennsylvania German fraktur and decorative arts will be on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from through April 26 and the Free Library of Philadelphia through July 16.