Wharton Esherick (1887–1970)
1520 Horseshoe Trail, Malvern, PA, 19355
610-644-5822
ABOUT
The Wharton Esherick Museum, located just outside of Valley Forge Park in Malvern, PA is the handcrafted home and studio of Wharton Esherick (1887-1970), an internationally significant artist and leader of the Studio Furniture Movement. Esherick worked primarily in wood and extended his unique forms to furniture, furnishings, interiors, buildings, and more. Through guided tours that must be reserved in advance, guests are invited to journey through the Esherick Studio—a hand-crafted building filled with Esherick’s art and personal objects, which is itself an inhabitable artwork. The Studio, which Esherick considered his autobiography, is now recognized as a National Historic Landmark for Architecture. The Museum campus also includes Esherick’s Expressionist-style garage and his 1956 Workshop co-designed with architects Louis Kahn and Anne Tyng, which is open for special events and topic tours on select dates.
SPECIAL RESOURCES
“If it’s not fun, it’s not worth doing.”
— Wharton Esherick
Wharton Esherick (1887–1970)
Wharton Esherick was an internationally significant figure in the landscape of art history and American modern design. As a sculptor, Esherick worked primarily in wood and extended his unique forms to furniture, furnishings, interiors, buildings, and more. His motto, “If it’s not fun, it’s not worth doing,” is evident in the joyful expression of his work. Now recognized as a leader of the studio furniture movement, Esherick saw himself as an artist, not a craftsman, and his concern was with form, not technique. He pursued his artistic vision in forms that might turn to furniture or other sculptural furnishings. More importantly, these were but one aspect of his art complemented by the paintings, prints, drawings, poetry, and sculpture he also created.
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Wharton Esherick was an artistic polymath who is best known for his expressive, hand-crafted wood furniture. An early innovator of American studio craft and a leading figure in mid-century design, Esherick drew on myriad sources for his work. These ranged from heavily decorated Arts and Crafts furnishings to sleek modernist sculpture; the edgy, jutting forms of European expressionism to the straightforward functionality of Pennsylvania barns.
Built into the wooded slope of Valley Forge Mountain, the Esherick Studio is a hand-crafted manifestation of Esherick’s vision for art in everyday life. Esherick began the Studio in 1926. In collaboration with local tradespeople, he broke ground on a stone structure resembling a Pennsylvania bank barn. Over forty years, he expanded the building organically, to satisfy his changing needs and aesthetics. Using wood, metal, concrete, pigment, and stucco, he fashioned an enchanting, intimate world of warm, tactile surfaces and freeform lines.
Esherick used the Studio as a workspace, home, gallery, and a haven for entertaining a host of creative individuals who were his friends. These included novelists Sherwood Anderson and Theodore Dreiser; photographers Marjorie Content and Conseuelo Kanaga; architects Louis Kahn, Anne Tyng, and Robert Venturi; and from studio craft circles, woodworker Sam Maloof, ceramicist Frans Wildenhain, painter and ceramicist Henry Varnum Poor, and textile designers June Groff and Ruth Reeves.
In his lifetime, Esherick had major exhibitions at the 1940 New York World’s Fair, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, Philadelphia Art Alliance, and the Brooklyn Museum. His work is represented nationally in the permanent collections of more than 20 major museums and galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
Preserved very much as it was in his lifetime, the Studio houses an extensive collection of his furniture, sculptures, prints, paintings, and personal effects. Works on display include such iconic designs as his three-legged stools, music stand, and hammer-handle chairs, as well as a number of unique, one-off pieces. Other buildings on the Museum campus include Esherick’s expressionist log cabin garage, and the 1956 Workshop, which he designed in collaboration with celebrated architects Louis Kahn and Anne Tyng. The Workshop, which now serves as the Museum office, is open for special events and tours on select dates.
