Institute Of Contemporary Art

Patrick T. Murphy, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania since 1990, has resigned and will assume the top post at the Royal Hibernian Academy in his native Dublin in November. "Patrick has been a terrific leader at ICA," said Penn's interim provost, Michael L. Wachter. "He's been instrumental in producing high-quality local, national and international exhibitions over the past decade. " Murphy, who will leave ICA in November, said he had not been seeking a job. "It just came up," and "it's an interesting time in Ireland.

The gestation period has been nearly four years, but Philadelphia is finally about to gain a new art space. Actually, it's an old art space in a brand-new building, but the transformation is so dramatic that it seems more like a rebirth than just a simple move to new quarters. The public will get a chance to see it tomorrow and Sunday when the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the city's main venues for avant-garde art, throws a house-warming party at its new building at 36th and Sansom Streets.

Youngsters this weekend can choose from a medley of musical performances, two theater presentations and free family art workshops. The PARTY (Performing Arts for Youth series) at the Gershman YM & YWHA Branch of the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Philadelphia is scheduled for Sunday with entertainment by the musical duo Gemini. In "Fancy That," twin brothers Sandor and Laszlo Slomovits will perform sing-alongs. Gemini at Gershman YM & YWHA Branch of the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Philadelphia, 401 S. Broad St, at 2 p.m. Sunday.

Every fourth grader in the Philadelphia School District - 14,000 students in all - will get a free trip to one of the region's art museums thanks to a new program announced yesterday. Trumpeted by Mayor Nutter, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and members of the arts community, the program was made possible by a $247,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and funds from other organizations. "This will provide a wonderful opportunity to develop and sustain the cultural and social health of our children," Ackerman said.

ICA is ready to adapt to changes in the arts world In response to Stephan Salisbury's article "Art museums' surge takes toll at the top" (Inquirer, May 28) and Edward J. Sozanski's "Staff cuts set at Penn art center" (Inquirer, May 2), I would like to clarify some points in relation to the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. Since opening its new building in 1991, ICA has received a regular additional subvention from the university to cover its annual shortfall in revenue.

What can art, culture and government do for one another? That's the topic that four Philadelphians involved in the arts and culture will take up Thursday in the Academy of Music Ballroom, Broad and Locust streets. The discussion will begin at 5:30 p.m. The public is invited, and admission is free. The speakers are Gerry Givnish, executive director of the Painted Bride; Beverly Harper, president of Philadanco's board of directors; Joseph Kluger, president and chief operating officer of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Pat Murphy, chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Art. David Boldt, editor of The Inquirer editorial page, will serve as moderator.

A simmering controversy over the selection of public artwork for the new convention center has been headed off at the pass with the appointment of an advisory committee made up of locally based artists and art professionals. The newly constituted four-member Art Advisory Committee of the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority met for the first time last week. Members received an overview of the $522 million project, toured the site and began discussions on their procedures and responsibilities.

No little cat feet for art this season - it comes at us with a rush, beginning Saturday with the opening of a spacious annex to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. After that come exhibitions in Philadelphia for Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Charles Demuth and in Reading for Edgar Degas. In Wilmington, the fabled Bancroft collection of Pre-Raphaelite art returns to its home at the Delaware Art Museum on Sept. 23 after more than two years of traveling around the country. And in February, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's agonized art arrives in Philadelphia.

Catherine "Kitty" Marshall McTaggart, 87, of Havertown, an artist and world traveler, died of stomach cancer June 8 at home. Mrs. McTaggart's colorful wooden and papier-mache sculptures were influenced by her travels abroad, especially to South America. One of her works, featuring two startled eyes, an M16 rifle, and an arm holding a crucifix, was titled Tengo Miedo, Spanish for I am afraid. It was inspired by gang violence she witnessed in Brazil, her grandson John Gentile said.

Muriel Davis Wolgin, 91, a patron of the arts, died Wednesday at her Rittenhouse Square home. In 1964, Mrs. Wolgin helped establish the Theatre of the Living Arts in Society Hill and served as an officer on its board. Part of the South Street renaissance that lured gallery owners, arts-and-crafts shops, and restaurants, the repertory theater featured experimental works. The young actors it featured included Morgan Freeman, Danny DeVito, and Judd Hirsch. Mrs. Wolgin graduated from Norristown High School, where she performed in theater productions.

Art Museums & Institutions African American Heritage Museum 661 Jackson Rd., Newtonville, NJ; 609-704-5495. www.aahmsnj.org . Tue.-Fri. 10 am-3 pm. Brandywine River Museum Rte. 1 & Rte. 100, Chadds Ford; 610-388-2700. www.brandywinemuseum.org . Tours of the N.C. Wyeth House & Studio. Regular admission. Closes 5/27. A Painter's View: The Andrew Wyeth Studio. Pierced, Punched, Painted: Decorative Tinware From Winterthur. Breakfast and Tour. $25 includes breakfast, tour and admission to Antiques Show.

Art Museums & Institutions African American Heritage Museum 661 Jackson Rd., Newtonville, NJ; 609-704-5495. www.aahmsnj.org. Tue.-Fri. 10 am-3 pm. Brandywine River Museum Rte. 1 & Rte. 100, Chadds Ford; 610-388-2700. www.brandywinemuseum.org. = Brandywine Heritage Galleries. Andrew Wyeth Gallery. N.C. Wyeth Gallery. Bayard & Mary Sharp Gallery. Scribner's Magazine: The Early Years in Illustration. A Painter's View: The Andrew Wyeth Studio. Tours of the N.C. Wyeth House & Studio.

Sheila Hicks is one of a small group of artists who, in our time, ennobled fiber as a high-art medium. They demonstrated that the aesthetic virtues associated with media such as painting and sculpture, and even emotion, could be expressed through objects made of fiber. Even though the 76-year-old Hicks has been working for more than a half-century and is internationally renowned, you might not have heard of her. That's probably because, though born and educated in the United States, she has lived mostly in France since 1964.

Louis Kahn was considered a pretty good modern architect in 1945 when Anne Griswold Tyng went to work in his office, then located in the Evening Bulletin building across from Philadelphia's City Hall. By the time they parted company two decades later, Kahn was revered for liberating architecture from its Bauhaus straitjacket and Tyng was known, if she was known at all, as his mistress. Had they embarked on their storied collaboration today, one imagines Tyng sharing the credit for their breakthrough work, especially the Yale Art Gallery and the Trenton Bath House.