February 16, 2022
Amie Potsic interviews Laura Turner Igoe about her work at the Michener, her curatorial background and practice, and current and upcoming projects.
Laura Turner Igoe is Chief Curator at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where she oversees a collection of nearly 4,000 artworks with strengths in Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings, American studio craft, and modern and contemporary art from the Delaware Valley region. She previously held curatorial and research positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Princeton University Art Museum, Harvard Art Museums, and the Barnes Foundation. She is the coeditor of A Greene Country Towne: Philadelphia’s Ecology in the Cultural Imagination and she has contributed essays to the journals American Art, Panorama, and Common-place, and the exhibition catalogue, Nature’s Nation: American Art and Environment. Laura received her Ph.D. from Temple University in 2014, and BA from Dickinson College in 2004.
At the Michener, she curated Impressionism to Modernism: The Lenfest Collection of American Art (2019), Rising Tides: Contemporary Art and the Ecology of Water (2020), and she co-curated Through the Lens: Modern Photography in the Delaware Valley (2021) and Daring Design: The Impact of Three Women on Wharton Esherick’s Craft (2021-22). She is currently advancing a 2022 initiative entitled, (re)Frame: Community Perspectives on the Michener’s Art Collection, which will feature new interpretations of the museum’s permanent collection from guest and community curators that interrogate central themes of identity and environment.
About the James A. Michener Art Museum
The James A. Michener Art Museum is dedicated to preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting the art and cultural heritage of the Delaware Valley region. Named for the late Pulitzer Prize-winning author and noted Bucks County resident James A. Michener, the independent, not-for-profit cultural institution promotes the work of nationally known regional artists past and present. For more information, visit: https://www.michenerartmuseum.org/
Installation view, The Work of Art: Museum Collecting Unpacked, Photo courtesy of The Michener Art Museum
Other Exhibitions at the Michener in 2022
The Work of Art: Museum Collecting Unpacked
January 29 – May 15, 2022
Stories of approximately 25 carefully selected objects from the Michener’s permanent and archival collections to explore the life cycle of a work of art, from its creation to museum acquisition. Including collection favorites and many recent acquisitions that have never been on view, the exhibited works illustrate the museum’s dedication to the diverse artistic community and history of the Delaware River Valley and offer insight into ongoing conversations about the future of museum collecting.
(re)Frame: Community Perspectives on the Michener Art Collection
June 18, 2022 – March 5, 2023
A three-step, year-long project designed to re-interpret the Michener’s permanent collection with
input from the wider regional community, including activists, Native American storytellers, external
historians, social workers, environmentalists, as well as general visitors to the museum, with a view to a
major reinstallation of the permanent collection galleries in 2023.
Walk This Way: Footwear from the Stuart Weitzman Collection of Historic Shoes
September 24, 2022 – January 15, 2023
With a focus on the women who designed, manufactured, sold, and collected footwear, Walk This Way presents the story of the shoe as it has never been told before. Featuring over 110 pieces from a collection assembled over several decades by the famous shoe designer, Stuart Weitzman, and his wife, businesswoman, and philanthropist Jane Gershon Weitzman, the exhibition ranges from a pair of satin wedding shoes worn in 1838 to a pair of glam-rock platform sandals from 1970s London. These unique artifacts allow Walk This Way to approach the story of the shoe from the perspectives of collection, consumption, production, design, and presentation.
For more information, visit their website or follow them on social media @michenerart.
Images featured: Banner image of The Michener Art Museum’s Putnam Smith Gallery, Photo Credit: Ananda Connolly Photography. Artwork image: Keith Haring: A Radiant Legacy, Image Courtesy of The Michener Art Museum.