WHARTON ESHERICK MUSEUM
PO Box 595, Paoli, PA 193010595 www.whartonesherickmuseum.org

Total Revenue
$445,248
Total Expenses
$383,968
Net Assets
$3,435,047

Organizations Filed Purposes: The Wharton Escherick Museum's purpose is to preserve, maintain and make (continued on Schedule O) accessible for public viewing the studio, residence and work of Wharton Esherick.

Our flagship tour program remained strong in 2019 with visitation up almost ten percent for a total of 5,388 individuals experiencing the Studio through guided tours. In addition to the flagship tour, we partnered with local arts organizations and individual artists to introduce new exhibitions, programs, and events. The Museum continued work towards expanding access and inclusion through accessible programs including touch tours, a residency for artists with cognitive delays and disabilities and improvements in accommodations for visitors of all needs and abilities, as well as care partners.Continued on Schedule O.The Wharton Esherick Museum was one of nearly fifty partner organizations participating in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries' Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy celebration. This yearlong series of cultural events marked Whitman's 200th birthday in 2019 by examining his connection to the Philly area and his relevance today. Our connection to Whitman centered around Song of the Broad-Axe, a poem from Whitman's Leaves of Grass which Esherick illustrated back in 1924 for the Centaur Press. Our summer exhibition, The Artist, the Poet and the Centaur, looked closely at the Centaur's publication of this poem and featured many of the original woodblocks used for the book, as well conceptual sketches, and original prints. Perhaps the highlight of the show was the hand-illuminated edition made by Wharton as a gift for his wife, Letty. For our Annual Party in September Walt Whitman (as performed by David Scott Taylor) joined us for a reading from Song of the Broad-Axe, allowing guests to hear Whitman's spirited words ring true against the backdrop of the Studio. We continued our touch tour program in 2019, developed in partnership with Philadelphia-based Philly Touch Tours. After research and development in fall 2017, we held pilot tours throughout the spring of 2018, planning routes and developing interpretive materials, including Braille and large print resources. A 3D printed tactile model of the Studio building was generously donated by HGA Architects and Engineers. Philly Touch Tours works to provide equal opportunities in cultural settings for people with vision loss and were able to help us craft a tour that shares Esherick's legacy in a rich, meaningful way. We also continued our partnership with the Center for Creative Works, inviting six artists to participate in a 4-month, low-residency program to take inspiration from the Studio and create responsive work. The Center for Creative Works is an art studio focusing on developing creative workplace potential and cultural identity for people with intellectual disabilities. The program kicked off in June, with artists making weekly trips to the Museum to draw from Esherick's work through observation, sketching, model-making and discussion. Artists this year focused on green woodworking techniques led by CCW's woodworking instructor Sherina Poorman and guest instructor Nick Flaherty from the University of the Arts. Our high school printmaking competition and exhibition, Imprint, again expanded in 2019, adding area schools new to the competition. Art students from Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties submitted 120 pieces, from which a jury of Museum staff and professional artists selected 18 finalists and prize-winners for the exhibition. Imprint also traveled to the Philadelphia International Airport, and was on view through December 2019. This exhibition included our 2018 Imprint finalists along with over 60 additional student submissions on view at the Philadelphia International Airport in the Youth Art Gallery. In fall of 2019 we presented Leave a Light On: The 26th Annual Juried Woodworking Exhibition. Celebrating innovative approaches to lighting, the exhibition included 13 works by artists from across the country whose explorations in the transformative nature of light embody the next generation of artistry and craftsmanship in woodworking. Launched in 1994, this annual exhibition challenges artists, woodworkers and craftspeople to draw inspiration from Esherick's unique designs, encouraging artists to continue to reinvent the world around us. Esherick brilliantly integrated lighting into his work, as seen in his knock-out 1958 Cabinet Desk, which delights the user with lights that turn on when a drawer is pulled open, or his Expressionist lamps whose sculptural forms cast bold shadows across the room. Juried by Dr. Robert Aibel, Founder and Co-Director of Moderne Gallery, Thomas Scurto-Davis, Executive Director of the Main Line Art Center, and Laura Heemer, Curator for the Wharton Esherick Museum, the works in Leave a Light On range from the humorous, to the elegant, to the dramatic.The museum also continued its programmatic partnership as consortium member of CraftNOW, an organization which unites the leading institutions, artists and patrons of Philadelphia's craft community to celebrate the city's rich legacy of craft, its internationally-recognized contemporary craft scene, and its important role as an incubator for arts based in wood, clay, fiber, metal and glass. Each November, the Museum participates in CraftMONTH, presenting at a number of events and activities held throughout the city, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show. The Museum has awarded the Wharton Esherick Museum Prize for Excellence in Wood at the Craft Show since 1994. 2019 marked the initiation of our master campus planning process. In 2014, the museum acquired Esherick's first home in Malvern, a farmhouse he called Sunekrest, where he lived with his family before the Studio became his residence. With the addition of Sunekrest, the museum campus now consists of 12 acres and five buildings. The farmhouse and Esherick's 1956 Workshop, currently the private residence of Esherick's son-in-law, will eventually be integrated into the campus as public access spaces with program applications. In June of 2019, the museum engaged Atkin Olshin Schade, an architecture and design firm based in Philadelphia. The team also includes an interpretive, engineering and landscape architect consulting from DLANDstudio, ObjectIDEA, Site Engineering Concepts, LLC, and International Consulting Inc., along with museum staff and board members, and input from community members along the way. The museum was fortunate to receive additional grant funding for the development of the master campus and interpretive plan. The support came from two sources; the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, which awarded a Keystone Historic Preservation Grant of $25,000 to the Museum, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which awarded the Museum $50,000 towards the planning process.The eventual integration of these spaces represents exciting new possibilities for the Museum. Currently, the Museum's Studio and a converted garage serve as its only exhibit and event space. While the hand-built Studio is itself a work of art, the structural capacity limits the number of visitors and is not accessible to visitors with mobility issues. The Studio also lacks critical space for events and programs. With the addition of these new spaces, the Museum will create a welcoming campus for all visitors with expanded exhibit and programming space, open natural and contemplative space, and revenue generating space. The planning process will be completed in 2020, followed by a business planning process and a fundraising campaign to execute the plan.

Executives Listed on Filing

Total Salary includes financial earnings, benefits, and all related organization earnings listed on tax filing

NameTitleHours Per WeekTotal Salary
Julie SiglinExecutive Director40$70,116
Tim AndreadisBoard Member1$0
Paul SavidgeBoard Member1$0
Kate QuinnBoard Member1$0
Albert LecoffBoard Member1$0
Marc CooperBoard Member1$0
Barbara CohenBoard Member1$0
Jasper BrintonBoard Member1$0
Geoffrey BerwindBoard Member1$0
Mansfield BascomBoard Member1$0
Ron MccollSecretary1$0
Gary BaumTreasurer1$0
Nicole RieglPresident1$0

Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202003169349305745_public.xml