April 13, 2002 - July 7, 2002

April 13 through July 7, 2002, in conjunction with the 250th Anniversary of Berks County, the Reading Public Museum will exhibit Jasper Kemp Elmer: Berks County Romantic. This exhibit will feature over 30 original drawings and paintings by noted Berks Countian Jasper Kemp Elmer.

Jasper was born in 1906 in Cerevic, Yugoslavia and arrived in America at the age of 14. He began his American education in "foreigners night school" but was quickly transferred to the Reading School District and placed in the second grade. Within six years he advanced through grade school and Reading Boys High School graduating Valedictorian of the January 1927 class, an achievement for which he was recognized nationally. Jasper spoke fondly of his art training as a student in the Reading Public Schools where he was one of several art students singled out to study at the Reading Public Museum under Dr. Earl Poole (a former Reading Public Museum director).

After high school, he received his Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1932 from the University of Pennsylvania where he was appointed an art instructor during his fifth year due to his outstanding work in drawing and watercolor. He returned to college during the depression years and earned both a Bachelor of Science in Public School Art in 1935 and his MasterÕs degree of Science in Education in 1941 graduating Valedictorian from Kutztown State Teacher's College.

His lifelong hobby, freehand drawing and painting furnished his first serious lifework. He was hired as an art teacher at Amanda Stout Elementary School in the year of its opening in 1935 and also as an instructor of Adult Education in Art at the Y.M.C.A. at Reed and Washington Streets. Later he taught mechanical drawing and algebra at Reading Senior High School and Wyomissing Polytechnic School. While a teacher in the Senior High School of Reading School District, he was asked to serve as head of the architectural department for freshman of Penn State College, who, through overcrowded conditions at State College, attended Kutztown State Teacher's College. He accepted the architectural teaching position and in addition worked nights, Saturdays and summers, practicing architecture in a Reading office.

At the end of five years of architectural teaching, Jasper abandoned teaching and concentrated on his own architectural practice. It was during this time that he was asked to run on the Republican ticket for school director of the Reading Public Schools, which he won. He died in 1953 from a misdiagnosed disease.

In 1936, Mr. Elmer was married to Julia N. Shanaman, a Reading-born musician and pianist. Her music can be heard playing in one area where Jasper Kemp Elmer: Berks County Romantic is being exhibited. In 1939 their only son Cedric Elmer was born and they moved to 345 Douglass Street where Jasper had an art studio and his wife a private piano studio. When Julia Shanaman Elmer died, she left the house at 345 Douglass St. to her son Cedric. He had been teaching at the Community School (founded by Peter LaManna and Werner Von Trapp), then located on Mineral Spring Road, and upon inheriting the Douglass St. property, moved the school to its present day location. Many of the paintings in the exhibit are from the collection of the Community School of Music and the Arts. For more information on this local art and music school see their website www.communityschooltoday.org.

Robert Metzger, Ph.D
Director, CEO, Chief Curator Reading Public Museum