Tag Archives: Museum

Lincoln Highway Driving Forces in Massillon, Ohio

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I think I was aware of the “Driving Forces: The Lincoln Highway Journey” exhibit at the Massillon Museum before I headed to the Lincoln Highway Association 2026 Conference in York, PA, but I’m not certain. I was definitely aware of it when the conference ended, and I considered ways to include a stop in Massillon on my way home. That didn’t work out, but the museum lingered in the back of my mind until the weather and my schedule aligned for a visit on Tuesday.

I didn’t realize when I took the picture that the big neon sign I parked beneath was newer than the exhibit I came to see. An opening reception kicked off “Driving Forces” on May 30. The brand-new 30-foot sign was hung on the building around June 6. A wall-mounted plaque provides more information about the building.

The exhibit begins with several items travelers might take with them on a trip along the Lincoln Highway or any other highway of the era. Missing the official existence of the Lincoln Highway by a few years, The Negro Motorist Green Book was published from 1936 through 1966. The rather thin document on the table is a reproduction of the 1940 edition. It would grow over the years.

Some wonderful artifacts from businesses that once operated on the Lincoln Highway in Massillon are on display. John Margolies took the two photographs in 1988. Is it possible that Massillon had the very first no-tell motel?

Wall-mounted signs identified several driving forces, such as the Good Roads Movement, that contributed to the Lincoln Highway journey. Of course, the original Lincoln Highway Association was top of list and the three men pictured here were top driving forces within that association.

The museum’s lower level contains a gallery filled with work by local artists. The exhibit, titled “Creativity Within Community”, is organized by the Massillon Community Arts Council.

The upper level contains several galleries devoted to what I’ll call general local history as well as two dedicated to specific local icons. From the general galleries, I’ve included a 1908 Jewel automobile built in Massillon and some glass canes Massillon Glass Works employees made from leftovers around 1900.

I found the gallery with Dr. Immel’s hand-carved miniature circus and related artifacts particularly interesting. I suppose my interest might have been boosted just a bit by my recent exposure to full-sized sideshows. The cane on the wall makes a lot more sense with a little background.

Not surprisingly, football legend Paul Brown has his own gallery in the town where he began his climb to fame by coaching the Massillon High School Tigers.

All in all, this is a very impressive museum that I enjoyed way beyond the Lincoln Highway exhibit that drew me here. That Lincoln Highway exhibit runs through October 8.

Three Nights at the Museum

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The American Sign Museum often hosts presentations and other events associated with temporary exhibits. The Freaks and Sideshows exhibit that opened near the end of July spawned three such presentations on three consecutive Thursday evenings. Each was available for remote viewing via Zoom, but I attended all three in person. The three presentations wrapped up this week. Freaks and Sideshows runs through October 4.

Freaks and Sideshows features sideshow banners from Dave Waller’s collection, and Waller gave the first of the three presentations on August 20. “Collector Talk: David Waller” was, of course, similar to Waller’s 2022 presentation, but there were differences. One example is that at the earlier talk, Waller told of meeting the niece of Johann Petursson, the Viking Giant, and giving her the Viking Giant’s souvenir ring he had acquired. The rings are not extremely rare, and Waller has since replaced his gift with two other rings which he circulated through the audience. This led to an impromptu three circus rings circus when one of the attendees pulled his own Viking Giant ring from his pocket.

The idea of human freaks as elements of sideshows has long been a controversial one. There is no doubt that some people with physical abnormalities have been taken advantage of and exploited by promoters, but it is also true that for others, sideshows provided both income and community at a time when the general society offered little of either. While not denying the existence of exploitation, Jason Harris’ “Behind the Curtain: The Tales and Lives of Sideshow Performers” focused primarily on the positive aspects of the relationships. Underlying the individual stories were observations of how the pure curiosity that fueled mid-19th-century audiences faded as science explained conditions once considered complete mysteries.

The third presentation wasn’t as tightly coupled with the banners as the first two, but it clearly aligned with the spirit of those banners. As expected, “Full Circle: The Golden Era, Decline, and Renaissance of the American Carousel” contained plenty of history, but it delivered a whole lot more. Presenter Danielle Bennignus is not only a passionate historian but an eager hands-on preservationist. She was accompanied by a pair of carved horses she owns. The last part of her presentation included several in-process photos of her restoration of Little Boy, so named because he fit in the back seat of her car for the drive home. His companion probably has a name too, but I missed it. The presentation was indeed focused on “the American Carousel”, although the wide-angle shot I’ve included is of a carousel in Paris, France, which Bennignus and her husband visited not long ago.

This last picture really has nothing to do with any of the presentations beyond my seeing the little truck for the first time when I arrived for the first of them. I snapped the picture on the way to the entrance, and only later learned that it is museum founder Tod Swormstedt’s new ride. The Daihatsu Hijet Deck Van is considerably smaller than what Tod usually drives to haul signs and pull a trailer. It’s a Kei-class vehicle with 1 cargo bed, 2 rows of seats, a 3-cylinder engine, 4-wheel drive, and a 5-speed transmission.

Honda Heritage Center

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I’m guessing that many of you have seen plenty of attraction lists filled with places that you’ve already seen, are no longer open, are too far away, are by appointment only, or are so distorted by AI as to be laughable. I know I have. But I recently came across a list of museums in Ohio with several entries I thought useful. Every place on the list is currently operating, and I detected not a whiff of AI. I’d already visited several, and a few were too far away to fit my immediate plans, but that’s my problem. One requires an appointment, and my reluctance to do that is a personal problem, too. The list came from Ever After in the Woods. This is my first time hearing of them, so I’m not ready to give a wholehearted recommendation, but I like what I’ve seen so far.

As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, my first selection from the list was the Honda Heritage Center in Marysville, OH. It’s roughly two hours away, open at reasonable hours Monday through Friday, and free. I drove up Friday, registered for my stick on pass, and spent just about an hour roaming through the exhibits.

The first Honda plant in Marysville, actually the first in the U.S., was for motorcycles. It opened in 1979 with the intention of building the big Gold Wings. However, that was considered a little too complex for a brand new operation in a brand new country, so production started with the CR250M shown on the right side of the photo. Before too long, the facility was turning out Gold Wings and it turned out a whole lot of them before closing in 2005.

Although I don’t believe any of these were ever made in Marysville, these are the machines that firmly established Honda in the U.S. The Civic was the first Honda automobile to achieve any sort of success here. Next to it are 50cc and 90cc motorbikes. The only vehicle I’ve ever owned with a Honda nameplate fit between these two, at 65cc. The 50cc Honda is the most popular motorized vehicle in the world with more than 85 million sold. I think everybody’s view of two-wheeled Hondas changed when the 4-cylinder CB750 came out. I never owned one, but did ride one when a friend and I swapped bikes for a day. Nice bike.

I did have one of these. I just leased it, and it’s an Acura rather than a Honda so there are two technicalities allowing my only-owned-one-Honda claim. Acura was the first upscale brand from a Japanese auto maker and the 1986 Legend was one of their first offerings. I loved the car, but didn’t care for the leasing experience.

Honda has definitely done some serious racing on both four wheels and two.

Marysville is only about thirty crow-miles from The Ohio State University campus, so it’s only natural that some long term collaboration would take place between the two. That a Buckeye wrapped pickup truck would result from that partnership was probably inevitable.

Honda continues to develop other forms of transportation. Here are vehicles with two, one, and zero (Yeah, I know it’s gotta land sometime.) wheels. The two wheeled Motocompacto looks like something Inspector Gadget might use to cover the last mile to a crime scene. The UNI-CUB is controlled by body position. I guess it’s kind of like a Segway with one less wheel.

And there are even devices like the Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility that transport themselves. Nearby is an image of ASIMO on a screen (That’s me in the corner.) with a spot marked on the floor where guys like me can stand and make awkward gestures and get undeserved compliments.

No one will be surprised to hear that I paused in the Heritage Center lobby to check email and search for nearby breweries. You may be surprised to see that once I reached a brewery, I ordered a flight. It’s something I don’t normally do because I think a full pint of a single beer is better. But everything I read about Camp Brewing made a point of mentioning the flights in small Igloo coolers so I decided to go with the flow. The original location really is at a camp near Indian Lake. I went to the second location in Marysville where Markley poured and delivered my flight with a smile.

ADDENDUM 23-Aug-2026: There’s a reason Camp Brewing’s flight holders look familiar. One of my long time travel companions could actually be the first piece of gear in my brewery. If I took the stickers off, and if I had a brewery. Walmart now sells what appears to be the modern equivalent of this cooler for $27.99.

Happy Birthday to U.S.

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Yesterday was the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. Around 2010, the Cincinnati History Museum rediscovered a copy of the second printing of the Declaration and put it on display for the Fourth of July in 2015. Like this year, the Fourth of July fell on Saturday. Part of my blog post for Sunday, July 5, 2015, concerned the opening of the display on July 2. The 1776 document is again on display this year in an exhibit that opened on July 3. I took the opening picture from I-71 as I headed toward the museum for the opening of that exhibit.

Declarative Acts and Revolutionary Actors is paired with another temporary exhibit “Equal to Any in the City:” Ball & Thomas Photographs 1840s – 1870s. Both opened on the 3rd and are included with museum admission. Declarative Acts and Revolutionary Actors runs through August 23. “Equal to Any in the City:” Ball & Thomas Photographs 1840s – 1870s runs through October 14.

This year the museum’s copy of the Declaration of Independence is displayed in front of the 1st Pennsylvania Battalion flag. Josiah Harmar was a member of the 1st Pennsylvania Battalion and probably brought the flag with him to Ohio. His great-grandson donated the flag to the City of Cincinnati in 1926.

The Declaration of Independence was not signed on July 4, but was approved by representative from twelve colonies. Approximately 200 copies were printed that night in Philadelphia. Without instructions from their legislature, delegates from the thirteenth colony, New York, did not approve of the declaration on the fourth but did so on the ninth after which about 500 copies with the New York resolution were printed. The copy on display is one of four known survivors from the second printing. Twenty-six copies of the first printing are known to exist.

Additional informative displays and artifacts from Cincinnati’s earliest history, such as wood from the original Fort Washington, fill out the Declarative Acts and Revolutionary Actors exhibit.
 
 
James Presley Ball was a free Black man who, along with his brother-in-law Alexander Thomas, operated a very successful photography studio in Cincinnati from the late 1840s into the 1870s. The museum’s exhibit contains many of their original photos.

It’s perhaps not surprising that Ball was an active abolitionist. He frequently worked with the Underground Railroad, but his biggest contribution to the ant-slavery movement was probably a 600 yard long panorama he created in collaboration with other artists in 1855. It toured part of the country providing a visual depiction of the horrors of slavery. The panorama has been lost, but an accompanying pamphlet survives. A short video describes it in the exhibit.

The exhibit uses the Ball and Thomas story to share some details of early photography aside from the specifics of their activities. The film camera had just been invented and Photoshop was more than a century away but people were already busy improving on what the lens saw. Studio employees called retouchers might enhance black and white images with a little color or maybe even add something entirely new to the scene. Examples are turning a gray watchchain gold and placing a shiny gold ring on what was actually an empty finger.

It was still morning when I finished viewing the exhibits. It had already been uncomfortably hot when I arrived, and I knew the temperature was still rising. I opted to pause on a bench in the lobby for a bit before venturing out. What you see at left is the natural result of anyone spending more than a second or two in that wonderful half-dome with a camera in hand.

Because all of my previous 4th of July blog posts have included fireworks, I’m including this pair of worse than usual shots. In the past, I’ve photographed the shows at Kings Island, Loveland, and maybe a couple of other places. I can always hear, but not see, the Kings Island show, and that might be true of some other nearby events as well. However, I am surrounded by multiple neighbors who really like to celebrate on the 4th (and the 3rd, and the 5th, and more), so this year I just stepped outside my front door and grabbed a few snapshots with my phone. Then I stepped back inside and went to bed.

The 1955 Mountain View diner occupied by Sugar n’ Spice is a good place for breakfast when heading to the Museum Center. However, since it is in the downtown area, parking is a consideration, and for me, it often loses out to other places also within range of the museum with free parking. I’d already decided I was just going to deal with the parking, then learned that I didn’t have to. I had also more or less decided that I would have a very Cincinnati goetta-and-cheese omelet when I spotted something else on the menu. I believe this was my first-ever goetta Benedict. It is also very Cincinnati and also very good. Happy hollandaise.

Loveland Museum Center

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Saturday was not the first time I’ve visited the Loveland Museum Center, but earlier visits happened long enough ago that this website did not exist. They were, in fact, long enough ago that I remember almost nothing about them. To be entirely honest, I don’t remember half as much as I should from Saturday’s visit. To illustrate, I met three extremely friendly and helpful staff members while I was there, but the only one whose name I remember is the lady who guided me through the exhibits and supplied tons of information: Nancy. The main museum building is known as the Bonaventure Hoise. It was built in 1862 by Dr. John S. Law. It was the home and office of Dr. Frank S. Lever into the 1950s. Apparently, Bonaventure was the name of an owner between the two doctors.

I don’t believe any of the building’s current content is original, but what is there is appropriate and interesting. A placard identifies the refrigerator as a General Electric “Monitor Top”, and says the name came from its resemblance to the gun turret of the Civil War ironclad, USS Monitor. I’d heard the name before, though not the explanation. I had my doubts, but it does make sense, and the internet seems to support it.

There is an impressive collection of guns and a display about a log cabin that I’ll have more on later. The large document on the left side of the third picture grants eleven hundred acres of land on the Little Miami River to Colonel Thomas Paxton. It is signed by President John Adams. This led to the founding of the village of Paxton, which eventually became Loveland.

During restoration, the name of paperhanger R.W. Prendergast was uncovered and preserved. It was placed there in 1872. It was apparently uncovered and again papered over in 1932 when S.G. Tufts added his name. Upstairs, a bit of wallpaper, thought to possibly be original, is similarly preserved.

That previously mentioned cabin is now on the museum grounds. It was built in 1797, covered over the years with numerous additions, then rediscovered in the 1980s when some remodeling was planned. A placard from that previously pictured display is here, and one from inside the cabin is here. Although they are not directly connected to the cabin, quite a few historic items are displayed inside it. The covered wagon bows against the wall caught my eye, and I snapped a picture, partially so I could mention that I once read that wagon bows were the first commercial product exported from Darke County, OH, my home.

Here is a different view of the cabin and the museum, along with a shot of the modern building containing museum offices and an event space. 

Salty Dog Museum

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I have known of the Salty Dog Museum for several years, but had it in my mind that it was open by appointment only. I think it may very well have started out that way. But I recently learned that it is pretty reliably open on Thursdays and Saturdays. On those days, the crew is very likely on site, busy restoring something, with the doors to the two museum buildings unlocked. There’s a decent chance of it being open at other times, and a slight possibility does exist that it won’t be open on a particular Thursday or Saturday. In other words, even though the museum has settled into a fairly consistent two days or more a week schedule, everything on the sign out front remains true.

Had I tried one more door beyond the two I found locked, I’d have been able to step into the museum building filled with cars. As I contemplated my next move, Dan stepped into the sunlight to get a better view of something in his hands. I approached and asked about the museum, and he invited me into the workshop. After casually noting that I was starting at what was the normal end of a museum tour, he told me about the 1917 Cincinnati Fire Department ladder wagon currently being restored along with the “tractor” that eventually replaced the horses that pulled it originally.

Then Dan introduced me to museum co-founder Mark Radtke, who gave me a tour of highlights before letting me loose to wander at will. I’ve seen Mark in a video or two with Ron Miller, the museum’s other founder and the founder of Ron’s Machine Shop. Ron died in 2023, and I really regret not getting here while he was still around. As you can see, Mark graciously agreed to a photo after leading me through the proper door into the auto section. Before we stepped out of the workshop, I got to watch Mark and some of the others dig through a foot-thick catalog, then do some back-of-the-envelope calculations involving IDs, ODs, and probably some other Ds, too, to determine exactly which fitting to order for some piece being restored. Seeing how much that group enjoyed what they were doing, then seeing Ron’s enthusiasm for the collection of vehicles and paraphernalia he and Ron have put together, sure put me in the right mood for looking it over.

We returned to the other building, where Mark went back to work, and I went off exploring. The museum started with cars, with the fire engines coming along later. Apparently, however, once they started coming along, they really came along. The number and quality of the firefighting vehicles here is phenomenal.

Ahrens-Fox was a Cincinnati-based builder of fire engines. That no doubt accounts for many of their vehicles being displayed in the museum.

When there’s that much firefighting equipment around, there’s bound to be more than a few ladders. Many are displayed on engines and trailers, and there is also a wall filled with them. Those not lying flat against that wall could present something of a hazard, but Salty Dog does a good job of making them visible.

I noticed this rock waterer and asked about it when Mark and I were walking between the two display areas. It was their answer to the Genius of Water on Cincinnati’s Fountain Square, he explained. Then he demonstrated its remote control. I snapped this picture as I headed back to the car display building. Ain’t it wonderful what a group of engineers and mechanics can accomplish with just a few spare parts?

You may have spotted this car in the background of the earlier photo of Mark. Although it was not the start of building or collecting cars for either of them, this car might mark the beginning of the Miller-Radtke collaboration that led to the museum. In 2008, the pair went to Bonneville as spectators, but ended up as an impromptu crew. They also ended up hooked. They built this car and captured two Bonneville Salt Flats land speed records with it. There are some details on its Ault Park Concours placard.

There are several more race cars next to the Bonneville car, and a slightly different sort of race car sits a short distance away. It’s the 1915 Ford Model T that Ron Miller drove to victory in the 2001 Montana 500. The 1911 T in the third picture isn’t a race car, but it does look rather racy, and I’m rather fond of the after-market hood ornament.

Looking back from the other end of the building will give you an idea of just how many cars it contains, and it might give you an idea of just how much these guys like Fords. It’s not all Fords, though. Among the “off brands” on display are a 1908 Schacht, a 1902 Holsman, and a 1932 Chrysler. There are even a few motorcycles available for viewing.

Crosby, Stills, and Nash said it first:

Will you come see me Thursdays and Saturdays?
What have you got to lose?
          Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, 1969

Warbirds Revisited

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I first visited the Tri-State Warbird Museum in the pre-blog days of 2010, when this website used things called odments to deal with non-trip topics. The oddment for that 2010 visit, which is here, attracted a couple of visitors recently, and that prompted me to reread it myself. The first paragraph mentions that both the Warbird Museum and another museum visited the same day, the Railway Museum of Greater Cincinnati, were open only on Wednesdays and Saturdays. That stuck with me so that when I was looking for something to do on a Wednesday, the Warbirds naturally came to mind.

Nearly all the airplanes on display are from World War II, including this unlikely-looking pair. Flying the Boeing-Stearman bi-wing was relatively simple. It was the first airborne step for many new military pilots. The Piper L-4H Grasshopper was the military version of the extremely popular Cub. Its ability to fly low and slow made it very useful in training, observation, medical evacuation, and more.

These three probably more closely match your idea of WWII fighting aircraft. Like the Stearman, the bright yellow North American AT-6D was a trainer, but it was used for more advanced maneuvers, such as aircraft landings. The twin-engined Beechcraft TC-45H Expeditor was originally designed as a civilian craft but was adopted by the military as a versatile transport plane. North American P-51 Mustangs were very effective as bomber escorts and served in every theater of WWII.

This North American TB-25N Mitchell might be the museum’s biggest star. It is my biggest memory, in any case. That could be because about two years after my 2010 museum visit, I saw this and 19 other B-25s in flight at the Doolittle Raiders 70th reunion. The sight of all those big planes was pretty impressive, and the sound was incredible.

ADDENDUM 27-Aug-2014: I somehow failed to mention how friendly and helpful the volunteers at the museum were, but I now get a second chance. As I originally put this post together, I noticed that the nose art on the B-25 had changed since my 2010 visit, and I reached out to the museum via email to see why. I now recall being told that a couple of the museum’s planes had appeared in movies and TV shows, but I had not paid much attention. As I quickly learned, the B-25 name change came from a movie role with another local star. The story is here.

A couple of the museum’s planes were not at home Wednesday, but every plane that was there was capable of flying except one. This Goodman Corsair is in the process of being restored, with some assembly required before it leaves the hangar.

On the way back to the museum’s front door, I climbed to the balcony to get an overhead shot then snapped one of the flight simulator area on the way down.

This isn’t a warbird, but it is the sort of vehicle my Dad piloted during the war. He was a courier. Every time I see a Jeep from that era, I think of one of the few stories he ever told of those days. During the Battle of the Bulge, snow covered the ground, which was where most soldiers slept. He considered himself lucky to have his Jeep to sleep in. He could even lie down on his side between the seats, “but I had to stand up to turn over.”

Drawing Board at ASM

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Sketches are big in Cincinnati right now. Last month, I looked over some sketches by Rembrandt at the Taft. Yesterday, I looked over some sketches by various sign designers at the American Sign Museum. I missed Thursday’s opening reception for the ASM’s Back to the Drawing Board: The Art of the Sign Sketch 1925-1975 exhibit, but made it to Saturday’s tour by ASM founder Tod Swormstedt. The introduction placard speaks of the difference in how commercial art and fine art are perceived and invites folks to “consider what counts as art”. Early in the tour, Tod shared his oft-repeated observation that “The difference between fine art and commercial art is the number of zeros in the price.”

The exhibit is placed in what I believe is the museum’s largest event space. It marks the first use of the large movable panels made for just this purpose. The area’s walls have been used for previous exhibits, but the wheeled panels provide significantly more wall space while allowing the area to be easily cleared for dining, and dancing, and such.

Most of the sketches are placed in chronological sequence on the movable panels. A fixed wall displays a timeline of significant world events, along with examples of sign designs from the identified periods. marked times. Some of the noted events, such as the 1965 Highway Beautification Act, had a sizable direct effect on advertising and signs.

Among the things Tod pointed out as he led us through the exhibit was the start of using black backgrounds to better illustrate the impact of lighted signs and the increasing use of backgrounds and buildings rather than just the sign by itself.

Items on the exhibit’s last panel, as well as many of the previous items, can hardly be described as sketches. Some of the older sketches had truly been salvaged from trash cans and dumpsters. Some items in this photo were borrowed from collections displayed in homes and on office walls. The exhibit provides some real insight into the design and marketing of signs, but doesn’t help at all — Tod’s “zeros” comment notwithstanding — in distinguishing fine art and commercial art.

This picture has nothing at all to do with the Back to the Drawing Board exhibit. It is a detail from the billboard reproduction advertising the Lincoln automobile in the background of the last exhibit-related photo that might interest my named-auto-trail-loving friends. 

International Peace Museum
Dayton, OH

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Here’s another not-new-to-me museum. My personal history with the International Peace Museum is a bit different than that with the Harmon Museum or Behringer-Crawford Museum in that an earlier visit was documented. That first visit took place more than a year before this blog was born, when this sort of thing was covered as an Oddment. The Oddment entry for my 2009 visit is here.

Another difference between this museum and those others is that the Peace Museum has moved since I last visited. It now shares a building with a Ludlow Street address, and that is how I entered. But the museum extends all the way through its half of the first floor and can be accessed from Courthouse Square. That’s the side pictured in the opening photo. A straight-on view of that mural is here, and of the adjacent text panel here.

The lobby was set up for a presentation scheduled for later in the day. The column to the left of the first photo is called the Peach Pole. Among the images covering it, the word “peace” appears in the twenty most commonly spoken languages in Dayton. Hand-drawn panels hanging overhead make up an exhibit named “Bridges”. The lobby also contains a pretty cool neon sign.

The Anti-War Gallery was the first room I entered off the lobby. Most of the artwork is from Beryl Bernay and J. Kadar Cannon. The sculpture in the middle of the room is by Lori Park.

The founding of the International Peace Museum in Dayton in 2004 was at least partially an outgrowth of the city being the site of the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995, and the museum contains a sizable exhibit devoted to that event. The accords did end the violence of the Bosnian War, but, like so many agreements before and since, left lots of problems unsolved.

An equal amount of space is devoted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Last year’s 75th anniversary is noted, along with many of its peachkeeping successes during those years.

This guitar is the only item I distinctly remember from my 2009 visit. As described here, it belonged to conscientious objector  Ted Studebaker, who was killed in Vietnam in 1971 while helping farmers there. Studebaker was from nearby West Milton, OH. 

Rembrandt at the Taft

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There is currently an exhibit at the Taft Museum of Art called “Rembrandt: Masterpieces in Black and White“. I’m not very knowledgeable about art, but I thought the black and white part of that might not really be necessary. I would not call any of the few pieces of art I connect with the Dutch Master overly colorful. Yes, the fellow at the center of his most famous painting, The Night Watch, has a reddish sash and another fellow is wearing a reddish hat and uniform, but neither is particularly bright, and they are essentially the only splashes of color in the entire scene.

There is, as advertised, even less color in the works in this exhibit. It is made up of monochrome prints from etchings. The etchings are often rather small, and they can be quite detailed. Loaner magnifying glasses are available near the entrance to help make that detail visible. Also near the entrance is a timeline that places Rembrandt’s life (1606-1669) within the context of world events and other artists. The man had quite the impact. Bright colors, it seems, aren’t really necessary.

There are 49 prints from Rembrandt etchings on display, and, as noted and as can be seen, most are just a few inches in size. The cost of materials and a desire for portability were both reasons for this. Rembrandt made several self-portraits during his career, but this one from 1633 is said to be the first he signed and dated.

Since I know even less about etching than I do about almost every other art form, I found this display quite helpful. It seems the artist etches into a waxy layer applied to a copper plate, then acid does the etching into the metal.

In addition to the 49 Rembrandt etchings, the exhibit includes nine etchings he inspired others to create. One of those inspired was James Whistler, who, as we see here, used his niece as a model in addition to his more famous mother.

Admission to the Taft Museum of Art includes access to all permanent galleries, as well as this traveling exhibit of etchings from the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam. Here is one of several connections between the two. This 1651 etching of Clement de Jonghe is cited as an example of Rembrant’s mastery of light and shadow and of his use of people’s expressions and gestures. The 1633 Portrait of a Man Rising from His Chair is an even better example of Rembrandt’s use of these.

“Rembrandt: Masterpieces in Black and White” is here through May 17, 2026.