Woodmere Art Museum’s newest exhibition opened this past Saturday, April 9. Hearing the Brush: the Painting and Poetry of Warren and Jane Rohrer, explores the creative relationship between the husband and wife, painter and poet pair Warren and Jane Rohrer, who inspired one another and mutually sustained each other’s artistic practice. 

Both artists drew inspiration from a shared Mennonite background and from the textures, colors, and rhythms of central Pennsylvania’s farms and verdant landscapes. 

One a painter and the other a poet, they responded in different ways to events in their lives and environment, yet they remained in constant conversation through their long marriage. In displaying Jane’s poems alongside Warren’s paintings, their artistic conversations unfold. 

Warren often consulted Jane in choosing the titles of his paintings, which echo the themes of some of her poems. There are other, more elusive connections between words and paint, and both the paintings and the poetry underpin the significance and enduring influence of the couple’s shared appreciation of the simple beauty of the natural environment.

Hearing the Brush: The Painting and Poetry of Warren and Jane Rohrer was organized in collaboration with Penn State University as a companion to an exhibition at the University’s Palmer Museum of Art. Field Language: The Painting and Poetry of Warren and Jane Rohrer, on view in 2021. Woodmere’s exhibition, which is a more intimate presentation of the Rohrers’ work, was organized in conversation with Penn State University professors Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Christopher Reed, who are deeply immersed in the creativity of both artists.

The exhibition will contain approximately 20 pairs of paintings and poems and will be on view through July 10, 2022. 

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum will be hosting a number of related programs, including workshops, virtual lectures, and more. Visit Woodmere’s website for details.