Inside Out Art Comes To Town

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has decided to turn our 5-county region into a huge outdoor gallery and Norristown is part of it this fall. If you can't get to the museum, no problem. The museum has come to us.

The Inside Out program provides 60 high quality reproductions of classical works of art from the Museum’s collection to be displayed outdoors in certain communities throughout the area. Norristown has been selected to receive 11 of these works for the fall exhibition (now through November). You may have already seen some of them around town. I hope all of you realize how special this program is and how good it is for our town.

Here's the list of works and locations:

1. Painting No. 4 (A Black Horse) by Marsden Hartley (1915) at Norristown Municipal Hall (235 E Airy)
2. The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1898) at Theatre Horizon (410 Dekalb)
3. The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1834-35) at the Old Montgomery County Prison (E Airy and Maris Sts)
4. Grand Canyon of the Colorado River by Thomas Moran (1892 and 1908) at the Courthouse (Airy and Swede)
5. Bust of Benjamin Franklin by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1779) at the Main St Parking Garage
6. Poplars on the Bank of the Epte River by Claude Monet (1891) at the Norristown Transportation Center.

7. Lotus by a Korean artist of the Joseon Dynasty (19th century) at the Montco Intermediate Unit (2 W. Lafayette)
8. The Kiss by Constantin Brancusi (1916) at Poley Park (W Marshall and Markley)
9. Portrait of Master Bunbury by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1780-81) at Selma Mansion (1301 W Airy)
10. Sugar Cane by Diego Rivera (1931) at Elmwood Park (near the bandshell)
11. Noah's Ark by Edward Hicks (1846) at Elmwood Park Zoo (right beside the entrance gate)

You can download the Norristown Inside Out map at this link.

As I said, the works of art will be on display until November, but don't wait. With the nice weather we've been having, this is the perfect time to go explore these works on your lunch hours or in the early evenings or on weekend afternoons. Take your time, examine them, enjoy them. Most important: BRING YOUR KIDS.

And hey, no admission fee, no trouble getting into the city or finding parking near the Art Museum, no having to climb a zillion steps to get inside (unless you LIKE pretending you're Rocky).

If you like what you see, the other communities this fall include Fishtown, Ambler, Wayne, and West Chester. You can download maps to all of them at this link.