Perhaps a show assembled from a national base would advance a slightly stronger argument for the quality, variety, and inventiveness of paintings made by artists who have lived and worked in the region.
Yet this one - the most ambitious the museum has ever organized - has every artist it needs and some you should know but might never have encountered. It presents 50 artists, many of the major figures in depth, so visitors needn't try to make a judgment based on single examples.
"The Painterly Voice" rests on a foundation assiduously assembled over the more than 20 years of the Michener's existence. The museum has organized retrospectives for some of these artists, included others in theme shows, and regularly displays work by many of the more prominent ones, such as Daniel Garber, Edward Redfield, William L. Lathrop, John F. Folinsbee, and Fern Coppedge.
Peterson has written a book on the Pennsylvania impressionists and monographs on Lathrop, founder of the New Hope colony; Robert Spencer; and Charles Rosen.
Consequently, "The Painterly Voice" is familiar territory, yet it's the first time the museum has made such a broad statement about Bucks County art. And it's making it in a refreshingly unorthodox way.
Peterson is the first to point out something that's evident almost immediately - that this hanging is a personal assessment of the county's artistic legacy.
All curators make choices and value judgments based on their training (usually as art historians), experience, and taste. Peterson is a photographer and writer, and he tends to focus more intently on the content of a work rather than on an artist's curriculum vitae.
Instead of a traditional catalog, he developed what he calls a "script" in which he informally, and conversationally, discusses the artists' individuality, often by focusing on specific works.
