New Ideas CityHello Museum

Family/City Shift

This is a show about two families making significant contributions to Philadelphia and New York, the cities in which they live, including and beyond the form of individual works of art.

In the 1930s, Michael Gallagher, an administrator on the WPA, recruited impoverished artists including previously ignored African-Americans. (There, Dox Thrash helped invent carborundum printmaking, a technique that at once repurposed the material while compensating for meager supplies). Angelo Pinto taught at the Barnes Foundation for decades and in the late ’30s developed location photography techniques that freed the process from the studio.

The current generation inherited a Depression-Era ability to make do, reinvent, and inspire, especially regarding venues, resources, and people. They respond to urban conditions and they work collaboratively.

Jody Pinto, environmental artist, Anna Pinto, calligrapher, and Kitty Leech, costume designer, are teachers; Jody and Gwyneth Leech are community activists. All exploit off-beat or underused spaces and/or discarded objects.

Family/City Shift will be open from April 5 through May 11, 11:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. daily.
There will be an opening reception on April 13 from 4:00–6:00 p.m.