The Michener Art Museum in Doylestown opens a new exhibition Saturday, Sept. 5, exploring how Pennsylvania Impressionists turned Bucks County's limestone quarries into art.

"Abstractions of Nature: Quarries and Industry in Pennsylvania Impressionism" features 14 artists from the New Hope School, with works spanning the first half of the 20th century. The show runs through Feb. 28, 2027.

The local connection runs deep. The Buckingham Valley, a narrow band of limestone and dolomite stretching from Center Bridge to the outskirts of Doylestown, has supplied quarries for centuries. Artists like Daniel Garber, Charles Rosen, William Lathrop, Edward Redfield and Walter Baum painted those sites, depicting quarries as part of the natural landscape.

"When you're painting rolling scenes along the Delaware on canvas, quarries give a moment of drama," Laura Turner Igoe, the museum's Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest Chief Curator, told Bucks County Magazine in an Aug. 31 preview.

Garber is a centerpiece. His career took off after "The Hills of Byram" in 1909, painted from Point Pleasant overlooking a quarry on the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border. He returned to that view throughout his life. On display is a rare charcoal study, "Abandoned Quarry," made for a painting Garber judged a failure and destroyed. A 1925 etching titled "Harmonville" shows factory chimneys billowing smoke and a dying tree in the foreground, an unusually pointed critique of industrialization for the artist.

The exhibition also marks the 100th anniversary of Garber's monumental "A Wooded Watershed" mural, a focal point of the museum's permanent collection.

Some works on display are loans from private collections rarely seen by the public.

Admission is free on the second Sunday of each month through Dec. 13, with support from Art Bridges Foundation. Those Sundays are Sept. 13, Oct. 11, Nov. 8 and Dec. 13.

Upcoming programming

  • Sunday, Sept. 13: Unplugged Family Day with cut-and-collage landscape sessions from 1 to 2 p.m. or 2 to 3 p.m. Admission is free, but pre-registration is required.
  • Tuesday, Nov. 17: Virtual curator talk with Laura Turner Igoe, 7 to 8 p.m. Pay what you wish.

The Michener Art Museum is at 138 South Pine St. Hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.