Selections from the permanent collection

february 2019 | Crawford gallery | Philadelphia

“Selections from the Permanent Collection” is an exhibition featuring treasures from the extensive and significant art collection of Springside Chestnut Hill Academy (SCH) at the school’s Barbara Crawford Gallery.

SCH is home to a thriving community of student artists, a highly accomplished arts faculty, and now a fully-cataloged collection of 17 pieces in the school’s extensive holdings, the first chapter of a multiyear initiative to document the entire collection. Prior to the show the work—by world-renowned artists, alumni, and former faculty— had never been cataloged or displayed together. The show was developed by the school’s recently formed Arts Council whose mission is to “inspire and encourage dialogue amongst our student body and members of both SCH and our surrounding community.”

The exhibition has been curated by artist and SCH parent Melissa Haims whose passion for each piece runs deep. At the opening reception, Haims recalled her journey through the nooks and crannies of each building in the school to aggregate the work for this show, including pieces hiding in plain sight: a sketch of Albert Einstein that was hanging on a wall in the school’s Rorer Center for Science and Technology. The charcoal drawing of the scientist, done by Carola Spaeth Hauschka, appeared in a 1936 edition of Fortune magazine and is signed with a dedication—by Einstein himself—“To my friends at Chestnut Hill Academy.” Hauschka’s grandson was a science teacher at CHA in the 1930s, which is how this piece came to the collection.