| Wharton Esherick Museum | |
| Caption: | The Wharton Esherick Museum, 2018. |
The Wharton Esherick Museum was the home and workshop of Wharton Esherick (1887-1970), an American artist and designer who worked in a wide range of media, but who is best known for his sculptural furniture. The Museum is located on the wooded south slope of Valley Forge Mountain in Malvern, Pennsylvania, twenty-five miles northwest of Philadelphia. It is the most fully realized expression of Esherick’s vision for integrating art into the spaces of everyday living.[1]
The Museum has four historic structures that were designed and built by Esherick and his collaborators. The Wharton Esherick Studio (1926-66) is a hand crafted, sculptural building that Esherick built, sculpted, painted, and furnished over forty years. the Studio showcases Esherick’s broad interests in art and design, combining elements of rural, vernacular architecture with modernist sculptural forms and painterly surfaces.[2] The 1956 Workshop (1955-56), built as an annex to the Studio, was designed by architects Louis Kahn and Anne Tyng in collaboration with Esherick.[3] Other historic buildings at the Museum include Esherick’s expressionist log cabin garage (1928) and his woodshed. There is also a replica of an outhouse that Esherick designed based on the sets for the 1920 horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.[4]
The Wharton Esherick Studio has been listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places since 1973. In 1993, The United States Department of the Interior designated the Wharton Esherick Museum's 12-acre campus a National Historic Landmark. The Museum is a member of the Historic Artists' Homes and Studios network of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.[5]
The Wharton Esherick Museum incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation in 1971. In 1972, it opened to the public, offering tours of the Esherick Studio. The 1956 Workshop was a private home from 1973 to 2020. It now serves as the Museum office and is open to the public on a limited basis through special events and tours.