The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick

June 7–September 7, 2025 | Fifth Third Gallery
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The Crafted World presents the innovative work of Wharton Esherick (1887–1970), the famed American artist best known as the father of the Studio Furniture Movement. Between 1926 and 1966, Esherick built his hillside home and studio in southeastern Pennsylvania. Now the Wharton Esherick Museum (WEM), it houses a treasury of work from seven decades of artistic practice. To share Esherick’s creative vision with contemporary audiences, The Crafted World draws on WEM’s rich and rarely loaned collection of over 3,000 works of art. Detailing the artist’s career from his early woodcut illustrations to his revolutionary reimagining of furniture forms as organic sculpture, the exhibition explores Esherick’s fascination with the natural world and intimate connection to its materials, his wry sense of humor, skillful design-thinking and problem-solving, interest in performance and the body, and enduring imaginative spirit.  

The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick is co-organized by the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania and the Wharton Esherick Museum in Malvern, Pennsylvania.

A dark wooden decorative desk with a small chair and penchil holder.
Wharton Esherick (American, 1887–1970), Flat Top Desk, 1929 and 1962, walnut and padauk, 28 x 82 x 36 in.; Desk Chair, 1929, walnut, padauk, and laced leather seat; Desk Figure, 1929, bronze cast of cocobolo original. Collection of the Wharton Esherick Museum, Photography by Eoin O’Neill
Multiple wooden, multi-colored horse figurines sit on top of a wooden stand.
Wharton Esherick (American, 1887–1970), The Race, 1925, painted wood on walnut base, 6 3/4 x 30 3/4 x 8 1/2 in. Collection of the Wharton Esherick Museum, Photography by Eoin O’Neill
A three legged wooden stool with engraved markings on the top.
Wharton Esherick (American, 1887–1970), Three-Legged Stool, 1931, oak, 11 x 11 1/2 x 12 1/2 in. Collection of the Wharton Esherick Museum, Photography by Eoin O’Neill
A light pull in the shape of a human crouching is attached to a white string.
Wharton Esherick (American, 1887–1970), Light Pull, about 1930, cocobolo, 4 3/4 x 1 x 1 in. Collection of the Wharton Esherick Museum
A black and white woodblock print of an orchestra on stage with a full audience in lower and upper levels.
Wharton Esherick (American, 1887–1970), The Concert Meister, detail, 1937, woodblock print, 9 1/4 x 11 1/4 in. (image). Collection of the Wharton Esherick Museum
A black and white portrait of an older person with short white hair.
Wharton Esherick, about 1960. Photo by Susan Sherman, courtesy of the Wharton Esherick Museum

Exhibition Programs

More to Discover

Wharton Esherick’s Pennsylvania Hill House: A Design for the 1940 New York World’s Fair

by Ann Glasscock, PhD

In 1940, thousands of enthusiastic consumers and curious spectators flocked to the America at Home pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. They admired architects’ and designers’ showrooms, which included contemporary interiors ranging from urban apartments to country retreats. Of the sixteen showrooms, one was a collaboration between the innovative furniture maker Wharton Esherick and Philadelphia architect George Howe.

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