Over the fall and winter holidays, there are two Wilmington exhibitions you won’t want to miss. And since they are only 5 miles apart, a short and beautiful drive means that you could visit them both on the same day! 

Delaware Art Museum
Jazz Age Illustration  
Through January 26, 2025 

This jewel-box museum is noted (among other things) for its remarkable collection of illustration art. For their latest special exhibition, curator Heather Campbell Coyle has delved deeply into their archives, and the collections of other major museums, to assemble the remarkable Jazz Age Illustration. The Jazz Age (defined here as being between 1919 and 1942) was an era of great social change, much of it fueled by jazz and the culture that surrounded that music. Most illustrations were not meant to be preserved; they were created to be seen in magazines or in books. But here, the original artworks are displayed, striking in their detail and ability to bring an era to life.  Five years in the making, the exhibition features over 120 works by prominent illustrators. Paintings and prints are divided into categories with titles like Howard Pyle’s Legacy, Modern Style, Modern Love, Harlem Renaissance, and more. The section At The Newsstand features 18 large artworks made for periodical covers, mimicking the array you might see when you went to buy a magazine.  

Illustrators also recorded the rise of jazz musicians, so a large section is devoted to music. There are vintage films of performers like Josephine Baker and Cab Calloway, and one wall features a huge reproduction of a 1932 map of Harlem (that hotbed of jazz), pointing out famous nightspots that are illustrated with clever drawings. Advertising was not only about the product; then (as now) it’s often about the viewer who uses the product, and so this is a look at how people lived – or aspired to live. Artists began to focus more strongly on women and African Americans, since an increasing number of publications were directed to those demographic groups. There are illustrations for (and examples of) “The Survey,” an important African American publication, and those for the women’s magazines like “Vogue” and “Ladies Home Journal.” And of course, there are illustrations by the famous names (like Normal Rockwell) who created work for that great favorite, “The Saturday Evening Post.” In the era before photography dominated the popular media, it was illustration that both showed and shaped the activities and aspirations of Americans, and this is a revealing look at that amazing time. Jazz Age Illustration is on view through January 25, 2025.  

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
Transformations: Contemporary Artists at Winterthur 
Through January 5, 2025 

Set on 1,000 beautiful acres, Winterthur Museum is a leader in the American decorative arts field. You might expect it to be wedded to our past, but their latest exhibition puts them right in the middle of the future. Transformations: Contemporary Artists at Winterthur features an impressive gathering of 30 accomplished American artists who went foraging in the museum’s collections for inspiration. In this striking installation, curator Catherine Dann Roebar creatively linked their contemporary creations to the Winterthur pieces that inspired them. One especially engaging creation by Kate Sekules (an artist from New York, New York), explores the “visible mending” makers movement, her “statemend” sweater coupled with a 19th century mended cotton jacket. Both works sit beneath clotheslines holding 23 pairs of socks, collected by a woman who kept her husband’s cast-offs for 49 years. Sekules was so riveted by this quirky collection that she created an international network of Sock Sisters – 25 women in 8 countries – who mended these well-worn items in creative ways.

Transformations swings also to the traditional. Margaret Neil (of Philadelphia) reconstructed an elegant period gown that echoes the Boston settee (1760-75) next to it, both made with the same historic tapestry fabric. And Winterthur’s huge collection of chairs inspired a lively response from a group of furniture makers. At the exhibition’s entrance is thoughtful “Take Care” wall text, noting that while some of these works are lighthearted, others respond to injustice or trauma. And accompanying the exhibition is an arresting 15-minute film by Alexandra Cade (Merion, Pennsylvania) and Tommy Dougherty (San Diego, California), composers who imaginatively plumbed the sonic qualities they heard in some of the objects. A charming interactive section encourages visitors to “take and break and create. You are a maker.” It includes reproductions to color (not for kids only), magnetic objects to place on a collaged wall, and a dollhouse. And at the exhibition’s end is a wall of credits, showing how many people are responsible for this exhibition’s beauty and success. Transformations is the direct result of Winterthur’s Maker-Creator Research Fellowships, begun in 2017. Many of these artists were project Fellows, and the work of seven of them is also featured in a special House Tour. Transformations is on view through January 5, 2025. And if you’re visiting after November 23rd, you can also experience Winterthur’s popular Yuletide.