Andrade, Garber, Speight: In Conversation

September 25th, 2024 - TBD

Nicholas Gallery

This exhibition explores mentorship and its transformative role in personal and community development. It features works by Edna Andrade, Daniel Garber, and Francis Speight on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The exhibition complements the second chapter of our multi-year Joseph Plavcan retrospective, which focuses on how mentorship impacted his work as a student and a teacher and his legacy in the Erie community.

Andrade and Plavcan both studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and were taught by Pennsylvania Impressionist painters Garber (1880–1958) and Speight (1896–1989). Andrade (1917–2008) was an early op artist influenced by the Bauhaus movement, German modernism, and experimental approaches to design, color, and abstraction. Plavcan is known for his landscape paintings as well as his later geometric style with bold colors. By showcasing Andrade's art beside the works of Plavcan, their PAFA teachers, and Plavcan’s student Richard Anuszkiewicz (op artist 1930–2020), the exhibit highlights the visual intersections and stylistic influences that occur in the learning process.

This is one in a series of American art exhibitions created through a multi-year, multi-institutional partnership formed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of the Art Bridges Cohort Program.

Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges. Art Bridges works with museums of all sizes to create and support art programs that educate, inspire, and deepen engagement with local audiences.

About Art Bridges

Art Bridges Foundation is the vision of philanthropist and arts patron Alice Walton. Since 2017, Art Bridges has created and supported projects that bring outstanding works of American art out of storage and into communities across the United States and its territories. Art Bridges partners with a growing network of more than 240 museums of all sizes on nearly 900 projects—impacting 5.3 million people nationwide—to provide financial and strategic support for exhibitions, collection loans, and programs designed to educate, inspire, and deepen engagement with local communities. The Art Bridges Collection represents an expanding vision of American art from the 19th century to present day and encompasses multiple media and voices. For more information, visit artbridgesfoundation.org.