Reading, PA II (3/11/2020)

Wednesday, March 11, 2020 (continued)
Our next stop in Reading, PA was the Reading Public Museum, with Tyler Arboretum, reciprocity.

Reading Public Museum (1929) was a donation to the city School District
from local industrialists Ferdinand Thun and Irvin F Impink
to house the growing collection of Dr Levi W Mengel

Dr Mengel was a teacher at Boys' High School in Reading, who believed in "sensory education" or what we now call hands-on learning. He used his personal collection of antiquities to bring history alive in his teaching. With donations from Dr Mengel and 2,000 pieces acquired from the St Louis World's Fair, as well as a few paintings, the Reading School District opened a museum to the public on the third floor of their administration building in 1913.

Reading Public Museum entrance with Bronze Root (2010, by Steve Tobin)

The first floor of the museum has galleries of artifacts in World Cultures, Ancient Civilizations (including a mummy), Pennsylvania German, and Arms and Armor, North American Indian, Latin American, and Animal Habitats.

Alaskan Brown Bears and Kent

The stained glass windows (1934, 1938 by Blood, Anderson, and Light)
were designed with "educational symbolism" and subjects
relating to those exhibited in the museum

Stair Master Maze (1994, by David Anson Russo) in the
Mazes & Brain Games Exhibition

The second floor has galleries of art: European, American, Modern & Contemporary, as well as special exhibitions.

Buttonwood Farm (1920, by N C Wyeth)

The Wrestlers (1915, by Paul Howard Manship) 

Dappled Chalk Violet Ikebana with Fuchsia Frog Foot
(2002, by Dale Chihuly)

Red Dog for Landois - Münster Project (1986-1987, by Keith Haring)

Aberration (2015, by Aneka Ingold) was the
2019 Bennett Prize Winner; the prize was
created in 2018 to empower women artists
of figurative realist paintings

One special exhibition was "Rising Voices: The Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Realist Painters"

featuring the works of 10 finalists.

Nature of Obsession (2007, by Seward Johnson)
inspired by Girl with a Pearl Earring (c 1665,
by Johannes Vermeer, who Johnson felt
was obsessed by his subject)

Display with an animatronic Dr Levi Mengel who speaks
of his ideals and the function of the museum

The museum also has a planetarium, and an arboretum along the banks of the Wyomissing Creek, dotted with outdoor sculptures.

Troy (1994, by Carol Kreeger Davidson)

The arboretum with Wyomissing Creek and flowering
Prunus subhirtella 'Autumnalis'/Higan Cherry 

At one time the creek was dammed to create a "Mirror Lake"
in front of the museum

Winter in an arboretum

One of the footbridges in the arboretum, and a statue
for Trudy's Garden, a perennial garden

More cherry blossoms, in Trudy's Garden

Not really the best season for Champion Tree
viewing, but this is the PA Champion
Aesculus glabra/Ohio Buckeye

PA Champion Hemiptelea davidii/Thorn Elm

Next: Harrisburg, PA.