PENNSYLVANIA THROUGH THE EYES OF

 Below is a list of museums and public institutions who own and display Fern Coppedge’s art.

The Michener Museum collection presently contains 14 paintings by Fern Coppedge, most importantly Back Road to Piperville, a large masterpiece created around 1940. Three of Fern's paintings are currently on display until March, 2020 as part of the famous Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest collection of Pennsylvania Impressionism: Gloucester Harbor, Autumn and Sunday Morning (shown above). The Lenfests, who sold their cable business to AT&T for $2.2 billion in 1999, generously donated more than 60 Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings to the Michener, along with several million dollars to help support the museum. Selected works in the Lenfest exhibition have been exhibited previously at the Michener as well as at other prominent museums including the Princeton Museum in 2001.

THE READING PUBLIC MUSEUM

Visit www.ReadingPublicMuseum.org

Another Pennsylvania museum with a Fern Coppedge painting in its permanent collection is The Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery, a 75 mile drive from Doylestown. The Delaware In Winter, a charming scene, was gifted to the museum in the 1930’s by Mrs. Harry S. Craumer. This painting was one of 50 examples of the artist’s work displayed in the 1990 Fern Coppedge exhibition at the Michener. It commands a full page in the museum’s exhibition catalog: “Fern Coppedge: A Forgotten Woman.” Note: It’s well worth a trip to Reading, PA to see Fern’s painting along with the museum’s extensive collection, a planetarium and the spectacular scenic outdoor views from Reading’s famous Mt. Penn Pagoda built in 1908. The Pagoda is located 4 miles from the museum. As a day trip, you might want to drive past Taylor Swift’s childhood home in Reading or travel 17 miles to the Reading Railroad Museum in Hamburg.

THE WOODMERE MUSEUM & Other Museums

The painting shown above was donated to the Woodmere Museum in Philadelphia by Dr. James Powell and William J. Powell in 1982. It is one of Fern’s earliest known landscapes probably done in Topeka, Kansas before she and her husband moved to Pennsylvania in 1920. While the Woodmere Museum owns only one Coppedge, its collection of 8,000 art objects is worth seeing. Housed in a 19th century mansion on six acres on Chestnut Hill, the estate was purchased by Charles Knox Smith (1845-1916) in 1898 with the intent of transforming it into a showcase for his great collection of art. Smith opened Woodmere’s doors to the public in 1910. Pennsylvania Impressionism lovers will be treated to wonderful paintings by Redfield and Garber.

We are still researching Fern Coppedge paintings associated with The National Association of Women Artists, Moore College, the Greenville County Art Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Everhart Museum and the Allentown Art Museum.

THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM

Visit www.PhilaMuseum.org

There’s only a single example of Fern Coppedge’s art in the Philadelphia Museum’s collection: Drying Sails, a late career painting with an imaginative color scheme. According to the museum this painting is not currently on public display. It was a gift of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest who also donated millions of dollars to the Philadelphia Museum. While waiting for the museum to exhibit Fern’s Gloucester painting, next time you’re in Philly don’t miss the museum’s world famous Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh, Mary Cassatt’s Woman in a Pearl Necklace in a Loge, as well as paintings by Pennsylvania Impressionists Daniel Garber and Edward Redfield.

BUCKS COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM

Please visit our “Art & Education” page

PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF FINE ART (PAFA)

We are grateful for the assistance of PAFA archivist Hoang Tran, who advised us that the 11 Fern Coppedge paintings listed below* were exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts between 1917 and 1943. Unfortunately, the PAFA does not have vintage photos of any of these paintings in its galleries nor are there currently any Coppege paintings in its collection. We were invited to visit the PAFA to search for additional information which we plan to do in our ongoing research for our forthcoming book, Pennsylvania Through The Eyes Of Fern Coppedge. We are also working on a Catalogue Raisonne for the artist which will be published in a few years.

*Paintings Exhibited At The PAFA: Winter Afternoon (1917), The Thaw, Home Port, The Village Road In Winter (1918), Passing Winter, Screen Of Trees (1924), The Hill Road (1926), Palisades Of The Delaware (1930), Ice Bound Canal (1931), The Evening Local (1933) now in the collection of the New Hope-Solebury School, and Winter Decoration (1936) shown on Page 77 of The Philadelphia Ten by Page Talbott and Patricia Tanis Sydney, Opalescent Hillside (1943). Note: According to the 1922 American Magazine of Art, a painting titled Snow Covered Hills was purchased by the PAFA for its permanent collection. Surprisingly, this painting does not appear on the alphabetical list of de-accessed PAFA paintings. But a 25x30 painting with the same title was sold at auction in 1991.

We would like to hear from anyone who owns or knows the present location of any of the paintings above or others in museums not noted here. Our book will include background information about people who have seriously collected, or still collect, Fern Coppedge during the past 100 years. (Please contact us at the email address at the bottom of this page.)

THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE CAPITOL THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ART,
THE WITTE MUSEUM AND THE NEW CENTURY CLUB

According to the American Art Annual, Fern Coppedge exhibited paintings at the Pennsylvania State Capitol, The Detroit Institute of Art and other institutions between 1915 and 1925. We contacted Hayley Moyer, Administrator of the Capitol Preservation Committee in Harrisburg who said that they do not own Winter on the Schuyhill exhibited by Coppedge at the State Capitol. A painting titled The Thaw may have been in the Detroit Institute’s collection in the 1920’s or 1930’s. However, the curators of the DIA collection recently informed us that they have no record of it. Likewise, Leslie Ochoa, Director of Collections of the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas confirmed that the museum acquired The Frozen Canal in 1929 but it’s uncertain whether it may have been removed from their collection. It’s worth mentioning that in the early to mid 20th century most of Fern’s paintings were worth only a few hundred dollars. We also communicated with Farrah Parkes, Executive Director of the New Century Trust in Philadelphia where researchers have claimed that a Fern Coppedge was in the former New Century Club collection. Ms. Parkes advised us that the Trust sold the vast majority of its art collection along with its building in 2017, which probably included their Coppege painting. She suggested that we consult the archives of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania where their records are stored. We have previously examined the Plastic Club archives of the H.S.P. and will return to look for the New Century archives.

Conclusion: In addition to known Fern Coppedge paintings in museums, others by this artist may be hidden among the collections of dozens of smaller museums and public institutions. We are actively searching for these missing works of art which are often discovered in basements, storage rooms or hanging in someone’s office without being properly identified.

KANSAS MUSEUMS

The Fern Coppedge (Kuns) family is currently researching paintings at museums and public institutions in Kansas. The two beautiful oils shown above are in the collection of the Alice C. Sabatini Art Gallery at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library.

We are currently waiting for information about Fern Coppedge paintings in the collection of the Spencer Museum in Lawrence, Kansas and the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

PAST EXHIBITIONS

Prior to the 1990 Michener Museum’s “A Forgotten Woman" retrospective, Fern Coppedge exhibited from before 1920 through the 1940’s in Kansas, Pennsylvania, New York and other states. Below are some of her early exhibitions. More details coming soon in Pennsylvania Through The Eyes Of Fern Coppedge.