A Once-Only Opportunity for Growth and TRANSFORMATION
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WOODMERE and SAINT MICHAEL’S HALL A Once-Only Opportunity for Growth and TRANSFORMATION William R. Valerio, PhD The Patricia Van Burgh Allison Director & CEO May 14, 2021 WoodmereArtMuseum St. Michael’s Hall Located at at 9001 Germantown Avenue, Saint Michael’s Hall is an estate of four green acres at the center of the Wissahickon Watershed with a spectacular 17,000 square-foot mansion. It is for sale, and developers are very interested. A neighboring estate with similar historic features, it represents Woodmere Art Museum’s only opportunity to expand in the foreseeable future. St. Michael’s Hall Formerly the Harrison estate, the mansion has been a dormitory for the Sisters of St. Joseph since the 1920s. It is well maintained with a new roof, windows, and heating system. The last four Sisters to live in Satin Michael’s recently moved to new facilities. The Sisters are selling the property. In seeking to acquire Saint Michael’s Hall, Woodmere’s purpose is to create a Multicultural Collection Study Center: galleries in which 80% of the Museum’s collection is on view. Woodmere will donate easements on the open greenspace and façade, thereby preserving the mansion and the many histories embedded within its walls and on its grounds. Finances All in, this is a $9 million project. Woodmere has raised $3.5 million in pledges to date. • The asking price is $2.5 million. • $3 million is needed to endow annual carrying costs. • Renovation Cost: An early estimate was obtained, indicating $3.5 million to renovate the building to residential purposes. Once Woodmere owns Saint Michael’s, a more precise cost estimate for a museum renovation will be obtained. Timing Woodmere has until June 15 to arrive at an agreement of sale. After that, the Sisters will likely go back to their previous developer, who would raze the mansion and develop the property with 20+ single-family homes. Woodmere’s founder, Charles Knox Smith, and the the galleries as they appeared in 1910 Inspiration Building on its own history, Woodmere will transform Saint Michael’s into a Study Center focused on its growing and increasingly-diverse collections. When Charles Knox Smith opened Woodmere’s doors to the public in 1910, his collection was installed from floor to ceiling “salon style” for public delight and education. Painting and sculpture were integrated with decorative arts and other precious objects from around the world. The idea was to offer individual journeys of exploration with diverse voices of world culture. Vision Most museums have 80% of their collection in storage. By filling the walls of the 17,000 square-foot mansion from floor to ceiling with art, Woodmere will create a new kind of accessibility, with 80% of its paintings and sculpture on view. Philadelphia’s Contemporary Art Three large galleries on the first floor will comprise Woodmere’s Multicultural Contemporary Art Study Center, dedicated to the diversity of the arts today. • Collection sharing: Woodmere is a member of the Philadelphia Collaborative Arts Consortium (PHLCAC), along with the African American Museum of Philadelphia, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia Contemporary, and Taller Puertorriqueño. Works from Woodmere’s collection in Saint Michael’s will be augmented with art from the collections of the PHLCAC. • Art + technology incubator: PHLCAC has talks underway with Drexel University and the Knight Foundation. The Incubator will invent new ways for technology (augmented reality, holograms, etc.) to fuel innovation in Museum education and new forms of experience with art. NAMING OPPORTUNITIES Naming a space supports the combined acquisition, endowing of carrying costs, and renovation of Saint Michael’s Hall. Naming the building would be an extraordinary gesture: Lecture Hall The NAME Multicultural Collection Study Center of Performance Woodmere Art Museum Space First floor: Among the impressive naming opportunities are the galleries and program spaces on the first floor. Tall Multicultural Contemporary Art Study ceiling heights and refined architectural elements provide a Event Space Event spectacular environment for the display of art. Space Pledges over time: Woodmere is pleased to discuss all naming options and will accept multi-year pledges. Multicultural Collection Study Center Three Naming Opportunities: Contemporary Art The Entrance Hall and two main parlors will be transformed into the Multicultural Study Center Galleries, offering a vision of the diversity of the arts in Philadelphia today. Work from the PHLCAC organizations will be integrated with Woodmere’s collection. Naming Opportunity: Lecture Hall The Dining Room, with its spectacular, hand- crafted woodwork by Edward Maene, becomes the main program space and lecture hall. Maene was a leading figure of the American Arts and Crafts movement, and he enjoyed a national reputation. His work elevates the status of Saint Michael’s Hall. Lecture Hall Naming Opportunity: Performance Space The Gentlemen’s Smoking Room, with its spectacular woodwork by Edward Maene, becomes a space for chamber-scale performances. Art Woodmere is in conversation with the Harry Bertoia Foundation Performance Space to bring Bertoia’s “Sonambient Orchestra” to the space. Large Small Event Space Event Space NAMING OPPORTUNITY Two enclosed porches become beautiful, light-filled spaces for social events and activities. The large event space is enlivened by Nicola d’Ascenzo’s brilliant “paradise” window from the Horn and Hardart automat. Fixtures are the spectacular “Saturn” lights preserved by the Friends of the Boyd Theater. Naming Opportunities 2nd Floor With the removal of partition walls built by the SSJ to Reimagined accommodate bedrooms for 20+ Figurative Sisters, the grandeur of the Realism upper floors are restored. The large, light-filled spaces of the second floor become dedicated collection study galleries for specific areas of Philadelphia concentration in Woodmere’s Women Artists Modernism, Carles Study Center and his Circle 20th-century collections. American Impressionism: a Philadelphia View Numerous artists are Reconstruction: represented in depth, and the Yarnal Music galleries in Saint Michael’s Hall Room, Oakley murals also allow for feature, in-depth presentations of their work. Naming Opportunity: Galleries and Study Center for Philadelphia's Women Artists With Edith Emerson as curator and director of Woodmere from the early 1940s through her retirement in 1978, Woodmere acquired the work of women artists before most other museums. Thanks to Emerson, Woodmere’s collection is rich with the work of the Red Rose Girls and those in the circle of Violet Oakley. The Museum has continued to prioritize collecting the work of women artists, which may represent as much as 50% of the collection overall. Naming Opportunity: Violet Oakley’s House of Wisdom The second main bedroom will be used for a reconstruction of Violet Oakley’s masterpiece, the House of Wisdom mural cycle (1910), commissioned for the music room of financier Charlton Yarnall’s house at 17th and Locust Streets. The fourteen elements of the mural cycle will be installed with the adjacencies that Oakley intended, with a light-box photo reproduction of the lost stained- glass dome on the ceiling. Naming Opportunity: Impressionism in Philadelphia The main bedroom becomes a gallery for the presentation of American Impressionism as it evolved in Philadelphia. William Merritt Chase, Robert Vonnoh, and Cecelia Beaux were teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the 1890s, inspiring a generation of American artists, including W. Elmer Schofield, Edward W. Redfield, Robert Henri and others. In the same decade, William Langson Lathrop founded the art colony in New Hope, Pennsylvania that became an anchor for the artists we know today as the “Pennsylvania Impressionists.” Naming Opportunity: Galleries and Study Center for Philadelphia’s Reimagined Realism and Figurative Arts Since the 18th century, Philadelphia has been a center for realism in the arts. Continuously up to today, artists of our city have sought to reimagine what it means to depict what they see and “keep it real.” Naming Opportunity: Galleries and Study Center for Philadelphia’s Modernism In the first decades of the 20th century, artist like Arthur B. Carles and Henry McCarter lived in Paris for periods of time and brought the ideas of the European avant-garde back to Philadelphia, inspiring generations of our city’s artists. At mid-century, Sam Feinstein and the artists of Group ’55 participated in Abstract Expressionism. Naming Opportunity: Study Center for Works on Paper, Photography, and the Illustration Arts Registrar’s Object Files Office Study Center Woodmere’s collection, like that of for Prints most art museums, includes a large and Drawings proportion of works on paper. Study Center for Photography Because of sensitivity to light, prints, drawings, and photographs cannot be placed on long-term view. The Study Center for the periphery of the top floor of Saint illustration Michael’s, with its sloping eaves, will Arts be lined with flat-file storage units to house this largest part of Woodmere’s collection. Wall space will be used for rotating installations of the collection. With the sculptural shape of its roofline and cupola skylight, this will be an especially beautiful series of spaces. Naming Opportunity: Study Center for Prints, Drawings, Photographs, and the Illustration Arts Naming Opportunities: Grounds, Easements, and Heritage Trees A rare American Elm towers over the Woodmere will donate façade mansion’s entrance. easements to the Chestnut Hill Conservancy and serve as steward for several significant heritage trees, many of which are important specimens that date to the nineteenth century. The grounds, easements, and A magnificent, century-old heritage trees are also naming Copper Beech greets visitors at opportunities. the entrance drive on Germantown Avenue. Naming Opportunities Woodmere is offering the opportunity to name galleries, event spaces, easements, heritage trees, the grounds, and the entire building. There are a broad range of considerations and funding levels associated with different naming opportunities.