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January 4, 2000
CELEBRATING AN ARTIST'S LIFE FINAL MASTERPIECE TIBERINO HOME BECOMES A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
Anne R. Fabbri, For the Daily News
Correction: CLARIFICATION, PUBLISHED JANUARY 27, 2000, FOLLOWS: A Yo! story on Jan. 4 should have stated that Joseph Tiberino displayed his and other local artists' work at Dirty Frank's bar, 13th and Pine streets, in the late 1960s to early '70s.
Ellen Powell Tiberino's compassionate spirit enriches a corner of Powelton Village, home of a fittingly unique memorial to this singular African-American artist.
Joseph Tiberino personally welcomes all visitors to the museum named after his late wife. The exhibition of her paintings and drawings begins in the house they occupied for 15 years, in the West Philadelphia neighborhood where they lived and raised their family for more than 30 years. And the museum extends beyond that property to include adjacent houses and eight adjoining yards.
"Our house always has been a place for artists and friends to congregate. We have wonderful neighbors who enjoy being part of the group that is commemorating the life's work of a great artist," said Tiberino.
But the museum isn't just about his wife's work. "We want to create opportunities for artists to show their own art and for students to learn from them," he said.
"This is not just about art. It's about everything Ellen stood for," during a life that was cut short by cancer in 1992.
Ellen Powell Tiberino inspired an atmosphere of love and giving, say those who knew her.
Born in 1937, she attended Overbrook High School. She was always an artist, drawing pictures of her family and friends since childhood.
After graduating from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Ellen moved to New York City in 1961, and began her life's dedication to portraying African-Americans in all their beauty and humanity. Her subjects were everywhere: a girl suddenly aware of her body, a woman stooped with fatigue and resignation, neighborhood gatherings of joy and sorrow.
Joseph Tiberino, grandson of Italian immigrants, followed a similar route. After graduating from the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts, he moved to New York. There he developed his specialties, mural-type paintings and expressive portraits.
He and Ellen decided to marry, return to Philadelphia and create a life dedicated to art, family and community, extending from Powelton Village out to the world.
Their four children are continuing this tradition. Leonardo is a Muslim minister in New York City. Raphael is a mural-painter, also in New York. Ellen attends Community College of Philadelphia. Gabriel, a student at the High School of Creative and Performing Arts, had an exhibition of paintings when he was 8 years old.
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The museum, which opened last summer, is the realized dream of Joseph Tiberino and his wife's devoted friends, including the prominent poet and artist, Laura Williams Chasset.
"I always wanted to exhibit Ellen's work in one spot so everyone could see the progression through the decades," Joseph said.
"I started with different ideas, such as buying an empty factory building, then I tried to think the way Ellen would have thought. The memorial museum belongs here. This was our neighborhood, the house we lived in, the house we used to live in, that I gave to my son, and the houses of friends and relatives."
During a visit there - after being greeted by Tiberino himself - you might meet his son Raphael, who often comes home from New York on weekends, or one of the artists whose work is on exhibit in the house and garden. Friends, board members and neighbors drift in to work on their art, talk or just hang out.
"I see it as a learning institution," Joseph said, "a practical workplace where artists, friends and neighbors always will be welcome. We will feature changing exhibitions by contemporary artists, art classes and lectures open to everyone."
The entrance is at the side of the house, next to the garden. Once inside, you might feel overwhelmed by all the art and artifacts in various rooms.
Straight ahead is the library, which houses Ellen's early work, from 1961 to 1967. Her drawing skill is evident in these scenes from daily life.
Turn back toward the entrance to experience her more mature work, large portraits and group scenes painted in swirling grays, blues and greens, reminiscent of the Spanish painter El Greco.
According to Roslyn S. Hahn, co-owner of the Hahn Gallery in Chestnut Hill and Ellen's representative for several years until her death, "Ellen was an expressionist painter - but different from other artists.
"Her subject matter was from the gut. She painted the black experience, drawing on her own life. She expressed how she felt about things and people valued that honesty."
Ellen had an eclectic following, Hahn said. "Her opening receptions always were crowded with everyone from art connoisseurs to young artists who drew their inspiration from her life and art. Her work is in many public and private collections. People who could not afford the original paintings bought her prints."
Two of the rooms in the museum are small chapels, filled with Tiberino paintings, artifacts from Philadelphia churches, Mexican santos figures, Italian baroque figures and African masks. Joseph's portrait of a nursing mother and child - Ellen and Raphael - becomes a Madonna in this setting.
Downstairs is another room devoted to photography and more paintings, including a floor mural by family members. Early photographs of Ellen, her friends and family offer insights into the strong emotional ties between friends and family.
Jeffrey Tirante's photographs on exhibit illustrate what can be done with this medium when an artist is behind the lens. He uses time-lapse photography, poses models in the positions assumed for artists' drawing classes, and hand-tints the prints. The scenes often are set in the Fleisher Art Memorial chapel or atop the bell tower.
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Outside the Tiberino Museum is an oasis of city yards merged to create an inviting open space, with a pulpit, tree house, sculpture and ground-floor exhibition space in two adjoining properties.
Joseph Tiberino says his neighbors deserve thanks for the courtyard's creation.
"Four of the houses are owned by members of our family. We bought one yard from a neighbor, and two other owners, Anna Davis and Ken Kramer, let us use their yards because they support our dreams and enjoy being part of it," he said.
Gertrude Farmer and Timothy Davis have offered the use of the yard and first floor of the house next door. And two more families have also volunteered property.
"This coming spring, the sculptors in our group will be occupied with special projects on those sites," Joseph said.
On a roof, poised for take-off, is Joseph's huge relief mural of cutout figures on wood. Silhouetted against the sky, "The March of America" is a familiar saga of 20th-century Philadelphia.
It begins with his grandfather's emigration from Italy to America, their family and new friends. The story continues with the joyous Mummers, the sorry confrontation between the city and MOVE, and the Gulf War.
Joe Brenman, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and a well-known artist and teacher, has created sculpture for the garden and adjacent galleries that carry out Ellen Powell Tiberino's passion for humanity in all its guises.
The gently rounded forms invite the viewer's touch and note a kinship with all human beings. Particularly moving in the chapel is Brenman's sculpture of a Guatemalan family - mother, father and young daughter - who had sought sanctuary in a Philadelphia church.
John Simpson's carved, stained-driftwood sculpture combines stylized African forms within the natural formation of the driftwood. The faces are so expressive that you wonder if they portray specific individuals or emblems of the spirit within the material.
Raphael Tiberino, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, has installed his most recent painting in a protected area of the garden. "Bar Fight at Dirty Frank's" depicts the well-known artists' hangout at 13th and Pine streets.
He appropriately put his father in the middle of the scene because, 20 years ago, Joseph began the tradition of exhibiting artists' works on the barroom walls.
An adjoining house contains other paintings, including a "Last Supper" by Joseph, showing Judas paying the bill. This last supper is a feast, not a penance, and each character is an identifiable individual.
Ellen Tiberino's late paintings, in a room of the same house, are radically different from her early work. No longer muted colors and classical poses, her works on paper are fleeting meditations in lighter colors. They express a deliberate casting aside of materialism and flesh in favor of a new spiritualism.
ABOUT THE TIBERINO MUSEUM
The Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum, 3819 Hamilton St. (one block south of Spring Garden Street in West Philadelphia's Powelton Village), is open from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, and other days by appointment. Call 215-382-2003.
A $5 donation is requested.
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Five drawings by Ellen Powell Tiberino will be included in a special exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, organized by Innis Shoemaker, senior curator of prints, drawings and photographs.
"An Exuberant Bounty: Prints and Drawings by African-American Artists" includes approximately 75 works from the museum's permanent collection. It opens in the ground-floor Berman Gallery on Feb. 5 and runs through April 16.
Copyright (c) 2000 Philadelphia Daily News, reprinted with permission
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