Michener Art Museum Presents Charlotte Schatz

Michener Art Museum Presents Charlotte Schatz: Industrial Strength

Reported on Thursday, November 14, 2024.

Pictured Above: Charlotte Schatz (1929-2023), PPG Portland, 2004. Acrylic on canvas, 25 x 40 inches. Gift of the Estate of Charlotte Schatz. Gift of Barbara Schatz, Emmi Schatz, and Rachel Schatz. Photo by Christian Giannelli.

NEWSROOM POST: DOYLESTOWN, PA

A new exhibition to celebrate the remarkable artist, feminist, teacher and social activist.

Doylestown, PA – The Michener Art Museum is pleased to present Charlotte Schatz: Industrial Strength which celebrates the formidable artist, fervent feminist, and teacher, who embraced industrial themes and materials typically associated with male artists in the second half of the twentieth century. On view from November 16, 2024, until March 9, 2025. This is a new solo exhibition of the artist’s work at the Michener, and it serves as an introduction to Schatz’s career and wide-ranging body of work.

Charlotte A. Schatz (1929 – 2023) explored industrial forms through non-traditional materials and colorful, painted compositions that were considered unconventional for women artists at the time. Charlotte Schatz: Industrial Strength investigates the visual and material connections between the artist’s sculpture and paintings as she documented the region’s changing industrial landscape. Her interest in industrial shapes later developed into vibrant paintings of decaying factory complexes that she photographed, and often trespassed on, in Philadelphia’s Old City and Northern Liberties neighborhoods. An illustrated catalog with an essay by guest curator Cheryl Harper is available for purchase in the Michener Art Museum gift shop.

Born in Philadelphia, in 1929, Schatz credited the colorful rolls of wallpaper in her father’s store as her first artistic inspiration. Schatz moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to raise her family and later pursued her fine arts degree. She began with a single course at the Tyler School of Art’s Elkins Park campus in 1963, eventually matriculating and graduating in 1969. She was part of an emerging generation of women who realized they could follow their artistic interests in meaningful ways.

Pictured Above: Charlotte Schatz (1929-2023), Circum Cum Circumflex, 1968-69. Cast and fabricated aluminum, Plexiglass, and electrical elements, size varies. James A. Michener Art Museum. Gift of the artist. Photo by Christian Giannelli.

Bruce Katsiff, the chair of the art department at the Bucks County Community College (BCCC) and later the executive director of the Michener Art Museum, hired Schatz to teach sculpture and design at BCCC in 1973. Schatz taught at BCCC for 30 years until she retired in 1998 as Professor Emerita.

“As an arts educator, I find Schatz’s art and story profoundly compelling. Like many women of her generation, Schatz married young and dedicated her earlier years to family and social activism. I hope visitors see Schatz’s evident tenacity in the work she produced over her longstanding career,” said Anne Corso, executive director, Michener Art Museum. Schatz was awarded a Leeway Foundation Grant in 2000, and was the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner grant in 2004. She was named a “Pennsylvania Treasure” by former Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell in 1998. Schatz was aware of plans for an exhibition at the Michener, but she sadly passed away on February 9, 2023, at the age of 93. The Michener is honored to share her work and creativity with a wider audience.

On December 11 at 1:00 p.m. join guest curator Cheryl Harper as she takes you through the visual and material connections between Schatz’s sculpture and paintings as she documented the region’s changing industrial landscape. Register for this program online.

Pictured Above: Charlotte Schatz (1929-2023), Water Tower Combine #1, 2002. Caran d’Ache, 12 x 9 ¼ inches. Gift of Barbara Schatz, Emmi Schatz, and Rachel Schatz. Photo by Christian Giannelli.

Charlotte Schatz: Industrial Strength is generously supported by Tim Griffith and Anne Corso and an Anonymous Donor.

Michener Art Museum in Doylestown is dedicated to preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting the art and cultural heritage of the Bucks County region. Home to the largest public collection of Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings, the Michener is named for Doylestown’s most famous son James A. Michener, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who first dreamed of a regional art museum in the early 1960s. The Museum was originally home to the 19th-century Bucks County Prison and is surrounded by the historic stone prison walls which are part of the Patricia D. Pfundt Sculpture Garden, terraces, and a landscaped courtyard. The Museum features nationally touring special exhibitions, work from regional artists in distinctive galleries, and the quiet and serene Nakashima Reading Room.