Payne Gallery
by Diana Cercone
It should come as no surprise that college art museums hold untold treasures. OK—maybe to a few us—and, hate to admit this, I count myself among the unenlightened. But a recent short jaunt to nearby Bethlehem set me straight. For tucked inside the picturesque campus of Moravian College, on the Priscilla Payne Hurd Campus off of Church Street (commonly referred to as the Hurd Campus) you’ll find The Frank E. and Seba B. Payne Gallery, established 31 years ago by Bucks County resident Priscilla Payne Hurd. And to those unfamiliar to it, it’s better known simply as the Payne Gallery.
With one painting—her inaugural gift of “In the Studio,”1894, oil on canvas, by Susan MacDowell Eakins—and with a vision for the future, Mrs. Hurd established a treasure of an art gallery to be shared with the college’s students and the visiting public. Over the ensuing years she has gifted the gallery with more than 100 works of art, beginning with W. E. Schofield’s “Schofield’s Cottage” at the Payne Gallery’s dedication in 1982. Unlike Isabella Stewart Gardiner, who stipulated that no works of art be added or moved from its placement in her museum in Boston, Mrs. Hurd set no such restrictions for Moravian’s Payne Gallery, opting instead to set the wheels in motion for both a growing permanent collection and a venue for changing exhibitions drawn from local artists and collections as well as from national and international.
And what a marvelous vision she put in motion. On the day I visited, the Payne Gallery was celebrating its 30 years of exhibitions with one culled from its Permanent Collection entitled “Celebrate! Celebrate!” Most of the 30 works of art shown were by Bucks County Pennsylvania Impressionists, including Edward Redfield, Daniel Garber, Fern Coppedge, George Sotter and W. Elmer Schofield.
Meeting me at the Payne Gallery’s entrance was assistant director David Leidich. As our tour of the gallery progresses, Leidich proves to be an affable, charming and knowledgeable guide. And his familiarity of the paintings and their artists, if not one on a first-name basis, is intimate and informative, and his enthusiasm and passion for the paintings shine through in spades.
To finish reading "The Permanent Collection" turn to page 108 in the Spring Issue of Bucks County Magazine.