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History, Art and Gardens in Philadelphia April 22 – 26, 2008 |
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An interesting, informative tour arranged for The Volunteers' Circle of The National Gallery of Canada |
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Your Executive Worldwide Travel Tour Itinerary | |||||
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Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love and the birthplace of American democracy,
is a dynamic destination full of big city excitement and small town charm. Home to more
American history than any other city in the U.S., Philadelphia is also a major cultural
centre, with world-class museums and stunning architecture. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Longwood Gardens, Winterthur, Brandywine and the Barnes Museum as well as the Masonic Temple and the Dream Garden are included on this fascinating tour. |
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Tuesday, April 22 – Early morning departure for Philadelphia from
the National Gallery of Canada by deluxe motorcoach. Enroute, a gourmet box lunch
prepared by the NAC’s Le Café. Arrive at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel in late afternoon. The Loews, opened in spring 2000 in the former PSFS Bank tower, is the fine product of the marriage of an Art Deco architectural landmark and a prestigious hotel chain. The tower, located across from the Reading Terminal and the Convention Center, was the first skyscraper of modern design and construction in the U.S., with gleaming polished stone and clocks by Cartier. We’ll be staying in the Concierge rooms which gives us access to the Concierge Lounge. Welcome dinner at hotel. LD |
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Wednesday, April 23 – Following breakfast at the hotel, a guided walking
tour of historic Philadelphia including Independence Hall, The Liberty Bell Center and Betsy
Ross House and a bus tour of some of the major city sites, including a visit to the lobby
of the Curtin Publishing Building to view the astounding Dream Garden – a 15 x 49-foot mosaic
of more than 100,000 pieces of favrile glass. Color and light, masterfully combined by the
studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany, bring to life the luminous vision of Philadelphia native
Maxfield Parrish, who created the painting on which the mosaic was based. The brilliantly hued work was commissioned by Cyrus Curtis, publisher of The Saturday Evening Post, to grace his empire’s new marble and pillar headquarters. The work has been displayed since 1916, yet few people know of its existence. Also included in the morning bus tour will be the Masonic Temple. Quite apart from its Masonic lore, the temple – among the world's largest – is one of America's best on-site illustrations of the use of post-Civil War architecture and design. No expense was spared in the construction, and the halls are more or less frozen in time. Designed for the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Philadelphia, an early incarnation o f the Freemasons of today, the temple's interior is huge, housing seven different l odge halls, designed to capture the seven "ideal" architectures: Renaissance, Ionic, Oriental, Corinthian, Gothic, Egyptian, and Norman. This is the preeminent Masonic Temple of American Freemasonry. Many of the Founding Fathers, including Washington, were Masons, and the museum has preserved their letters and emblems. | |||
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Lunch on your own followed by a guided tour at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one
of the largest museums in the United States. The Museum houses more than 225,000 objects
spanning the creative achievements of the Western world since the first century A.D. and
those of Asia since the third millennium B.C. Highlights of the Asian collections include paintings and sculpture from China, Japan, and India; furniture and decorative arts, including major collections of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean ceramics; Persian and Turkish carpets; a Japanese teahouse, a Chinese palace hall, and a sixteenth-century Indian temple hall. The European collections, dating from the Medieval era to the present, encompass Italian and Flemish early Renaissance masterworks; French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism; sculpture, with a special concentration in the works of Auguste Rodin; decorative arts; tapestries; furniture; the second largest collection of arms and armor in the United States; and period rooms and architectural settings ranging from the façade of a Medieval church in Burgundy to a superbly decorated English drawing room by Robert Adam. The Museum’s American collections are among the finest in the United States, with outstanding strengths in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Philadelphia furniture and silver, rural Pennsylvania furniture and ceramics, and the paintings of Thomas Eakins. Holdings of modern art include concentrations of work by Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Constantin Brancusi, as well as American modernists. Our visit will include an audio tour of the Kahlo exhibit as well as a guided tour of the permanent collection. Organized in celebration of the centenary of the artist's birth, this exhibition of approximately 50 paintings focuses on Frida Kahlo's extraordinary self-portraits. Also on view are portraits and still-life paintings, in which Kahlo projects her passions, both personal and political, onto other people's likenesses or everyday objects. Born July 6, 1907 in the town of Coyoacán in Mexico, Frida Kahlo survived many difficult events in her life. She used these experiences, combined with strong Mexican and Native American cultural influences, to create highly personal paintings. Evening at leisure and dinner on your own. Overnight: The Loews Philadelphia. B |
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Thursday, April 24 – After breakfast at the hotel, depart for Longwood Gardens, the world’s premier horticultural showplace. Purchased by industrialist Pierre S. du Pont in 1906, Longwood Gardens consists of 20 outdoor gardens and 20 indoor gardens within 4 acres of heated greenhouses. Pierre du Pont combined his love of theater with his fondness for fountains and his knack for engineering in the Open Air Theatre starting in 1913. This provided a venue for outdoor performances from such notables as Philadelphia’s Savoy Company and John Philip Sousa’s band. Simple fountains were in place on the stage from the beginning, but one evening in 1927 a switch was flipped, and as the audience gasped, jets of water blasted up fifty feet into the trees, lit from below by more than six hundred colored lights. Following lunch at Longwood Gardens, transfer to Winterthur Museum and Gardens. Formerly the estate of Henry Francis duPont, a duPont family heir and outstanding American collector and horticulturist, Winterthur is home to an unrivalled collection of American furniture and decorative arts from the period 1640 to 1860 with more than 200 period rooms and exhibit spaces. Set amid 963 acres of rolling meadows and woodlands, Winterthur also boasts one of America's finest naturalistic gardens, with displays ranging from magnificent specimen plantings to massed displays of colorful azaleas in season. Continue on to the Brandywine River Museum for a guided tour of its unparalleled collection of works by three generations of Wyeths and its fine collection of American illustration, still life and landscape painting. Exhibiting American art in a 19th-century grist mill, galleries boast original beams and wide board floors, while glass-walled lobbies provide expansive views of the historic river and countryside. Approximately 40 watercolor, dry brush and tempera paintings by Andrew Wyeth from various stages of his career, including some of his most recent work are on display. Dinner and evening on your own. BL |
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Friday, April 25 – After breakfast at the hotel, depart for a morning
tour at the Barnes Foundation Gallery.
The Barnes Foundation houses one of the finest collections of French early Modern
and Post-impressionist paintings in the world. An extraordinary number of masterpieces
by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse provide a depth of work by these artists unavailable
elsewhere. The collection includes works by Picasso, Seurat, Rousseau, Modigliani, Soutine,
Monet, Manet, Degas and others. Art from around the globe is grouped with fine examples
of antique furniture, ceramics, hand-wrought iron, and Native American jewelry. Barnes’ eclectic taste sprang from his idea that art shared similar qualities and an aesthetic across time and culture. In the old Barnes Museum, Barnes himself spent countless hours planning, arranging, and rearranging his amazing collection into “wall ensembles” that combined works of art that he deemed to have similar aesthetic qualities or themes. Lunch on your own and afternoon free to explore this fascinating city. Farewell dinner at the Water Works Restaurant, located in the Fairmount Water Works (1812-1860) a legendary landmark in Philadelphia. Its huge water wheels, turbines and pumps were housed in a series of buildings that resemble Greek temples, and are located on the banks of the Schuylkill River. BD Saturday, April 26 – Following breakfast at the hotel and check out, depart Philadelphia for the return trip to Ottawa. Lunch in Binghamton at No. 5 Restaurant, housed in a red brick building that was once Firehouse Number 5. BL 
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Travel Agency: Executive Worldwide Travel Agent: Jean Sheikh, C.T.C. (613) 236-5555 Or 1-800-267-5552 Registration No.: 1892605 Coordinators: Sally Hutchison Mary Udd |
For more details on this tour or to request a brochure, | ||||
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