November 14, 2009 – March 7, 2010

Berks County’s rolling hills, streams and forests have inspired Reading artists for nearly two centuries. The paintings in this gallery provide a small sampling of the Museum’s collections of this part of the Berks arts heritage.

These artists captured an image of a passing moment in nature with a keen appreciation for the natural environment, depicting a variety of moods and subject matter: Among the views you see a nostalgic view of a youthful idyll in a backwoods swimming hole; an iron forge tucked away in a ravine encroaching on a pastoral scene of cows foraging in a grove; a lone rabbit peering up a country lane with blue skies and clouds dappling the road with light and shadow.

Berks artists expressed a reverence and delight in nature that audiences have enjoyed for generations—paintings that represented a new appreciation for the American landscape; the kind of paintings that one commentator described as “poems of our common lot, blessings in our daily path.”

Artists included in the exhibition:

• Francis Daniel Devlan (1835-1870)
• Christopher High Shearer (1846-1926)
• J. Heyl Raser (1824-1921)
• Frederick A. Spang (1834-1891)
• John Rasmussen (1828-1895)
• Frank Reed Sallade (?)
• Jack Coggins (1911-2006)

Images: Top - Francis Daniel Devlan, Berks County, Pennsylvania, 1835-1870, Gibraltar Furnace, Seyfert's Mill, 1868, oil on canvas, Museum Purchase; Bottom - J. Heyl Raser, Berks County, Pennsylvania ,1824-1901, View of Poplar Neck #2, oil on canvas, Museum Purchase.