Philadelphia artist Peter Paone was best known for his work as a printmaker, but a new exhibition at Dover’s Biggs Museum of American Art showcases a lesser-seen side of his art, including some works never before displayed in public.
Born in south Philadelphia, Paone spent much of his career there, producing art and teaching, says Laura Fravel, the Biggs Museum’s Curator of American Art.
“Active for more than eight decades, founded the printmaking department at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, was its first chair, taught there for more than 30 years, mentored generations of art students in Philadelphia and helped to nurture their careers,” she says.
While Paone was best known for his printmaking, he also created a number of acrylic gouache works, using paints he created himself.
“Visiting his studio, in conversations with him, it was clear that he had hundreds of these in portfolios stacked up around his studio, had been producing these for decades, but had never found the right audience for them, in part because he was better known as a printmaker,” Fravel says.
The Biggs is the first museum to display many of those works, including a number created in the months before Paone’s death in May at the age of 90.
“He created a lot of the work in the exhibition at the Biggs, specifically with this show in mind,” Fravel says. “So a lot of it is recent work; it's never been shown before.”
A big focus of the exhibition is storytelling. Paone was usually quiet about how people should interpret his work, preferring instead to let viewers create their own stories. With this being the first exhibition for some of these works, the opportunity to find out more about the artist’s intent was curtailed by his death this spring. Fravel says that adds an enigmatic layer to the work.
“In an odd way, I think he would have enjoyed that mystery,” she says. “He intentionally did not want to talk about his work. He wanted you to bring your own associations to it, your own storytelling.”
Watching visitors do just that is one of the most rewarding parts of hosting the exhibition, she adds.
“I find it interesting watching people go through the show now - that everybody brings their own memories and associations to them and kind of pieces together stories, remembers things long forgotten, or creates new stories from these characters,” she says.
“BEFORE WORDS: The Art of Peter Paone” is on display through April 2027 at the Biggs Museum of American Art.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
