Ongoing until Oct. 25, the School of Arts and Communication presents a historic exhibition in the Hicks art center featuring works from over twenty esteemed former Bucks faculty dedicated to the late Marlene Miller.
Bucks Exhibitions Associate, Clifford Eberly, is responsible for the conceptualization of The Faculty Emeriti Arts Exhibition. Eberly additionally hosted the exhibition reception held on Aug. 28, attended by featured artists, their family, and the Bucks County community including a number of current Michener Art Museum members.
Eberly gave some opening remarks which were followed by President of the college, Dr. Patrick M. Jones, and newly appointed dean of Arts and Communication, Dr. Carolina Blatt, each expressing admiration of the arts at Bucks.
Among the event speakers that were featured, emeriti artist, founding member and former director of the Michener Art Museum and working photographer, Bruce Katsiff, offered insight at the reception affirming the value of Bucks County as an artistic hub. He believes the intersection of Bucks County as a beautiful natural environment to gain inspiration from, its proximity to major urban areas in Philadelphia and New York City, and its founding Quaker values creates a “strong artistic center” in Bucks.
Katsiff spoke of the beginning of arts at Bucks: how the goal of establishing the Bucks arts program was “a challenge to prove a small community college can have a really good art program and go against larger universities” but a successful one. The artists featured in this exhibition have exhibited previously, a handful of which have had works exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art. Katsiff emphasized, “would you believe there are seven Guggenheim fellows who worked here?”
When asked about what Bucks students can now take away from the exhibition, he answered indicating the “variety of techniques, contemporary, mixed media, and the like.”
He pointed to the Marlene Miller wood cut piece as example of traditional technique, and his own work; suggestive of his own journey and contemporary photography mediums.
Of his own work– in which he developed a unique style in platinum printing then in his contemporary project in digital color photography printed in full-scale, he spoke to the historical “profound changes in photography. […] Forty years ago, photographs could only exist as physical objects. Now, about ninety-nine percent of all photos taken never do.”
In an email interview with Eberly, he explained the process of selecting and procuring certain pieces for this exhibition. He himself contacts and negotiates the use of exhibition pieces, many times involving communicating with the artists themselves or the artist’s estate. In the case of Bruce Katsiff’s featured works from his “Face Maps” full-scale digital color photography series, Eberly revealed he and Katsiff, “talked about the breadth of his photographs he has taken in the last 50 years” agreeing “that these two photographs on view from his Face Maps series were the most unusual and had not been shown in galleries as much as his other works.”
The Exhibition press release teases that some of the pieces curated both old and new, have not been previously exhibited to the public; Eberly affirms this, writing, “I believe the painting by Alan Goldstein has not been exhibited outside of his studio […] and one of Sandra Scicchitani’s prints is brand new […]. The sculpture in the courtyard by John Mathews has not been shown in conjunction with an exhibition previously.” He continues, “The city scape by Robert Dodge have not been exhibited together previously.”
Eberly is especially satisfied with getting the unusual Paul F. Keene painting “Late Summer Studio Window” alongside two previously unexhibited drawings from the same series, courtesy of Paul F. Keene’s son, Jacques.
At the reception, the attending faculty Emeriti and their family were invited to re-create a 1977 group photo taken by Bruce Katsiff of the Bucks arts faculty. The 2025 group photo was taken by local photographer previously exhibited in the Hicks art center, Mel Evans using a 4 x 5 camera.