Art of Aging: Michener Art Museum’s retired founding director Bruce Katsiff returns with new exhibition

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (WPVI) — Paid Sponsor Partnership: Philadelphia Corporation for Aging

When Bruce Katsiff was employed as director of the Michener in 1989, it was an arts middle, however he had greater plans.

“I wanted to start a museum,” says Katsiff, Founding Director of the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pa. “And that was a daunting challenge, you know? This is a community rich with world-class museums.”

A core assortment was constructed from Bucks County’s yard, so to talk.

“We made a decision that we would take a narrow perspective on our collecting efforts, that we would collect artists from this region,” he says.

During his 23-year tenure, Katsiff grew the museum. He labored to get iconic items put in and had bodily rooms constructed as properly.

“The Nakashima Room, I think, is a wonderful piece of the museum’s property,” he says.

And now, Katsiff’s personal work is on the partitions.

“The title is ‘Pieces of a Life,’” he says. “This is a retrospective.”

It’s his first time exhibiting on the Michener, however his assortment of pictures spans six-decades of labor.

He says coming again to the museum after he is been retired is “joyous for me.”

There are 5 completely different teams of images, which embrace a sampling of his ‘Face Maps’ sequence. He says the works are “digitally all reconstructed.”

“I first became interested in photography when I was a student. I was a student at Central High School in Philadelphia,” he says. “And eventually I went to Rochester Institute of Technology.”

He moved to Lumberville, Pennsylvania within the late Sixties, the place taking photographs of his new neighbors led to a set known as ‘River Town Portraits.’

“I’ve worked in kind of ten-year cycles,” he says. “I love the photograph’s ability to capture an enormous amount of detail.”

In a piece known as ‘The Sleep of Peace,’ Katsiff says he captures the transitional interval “as we go from life to death.”

It’s a part of his ‘Nature Morte’ sequence.

“I was looking for ways that I could find beauty in objects that we’re normally forced to turn away from,” he says. “And I was basically photographing bones and other found objects.”

Some of those photographs he handed round so different artists might add to them.

“It was really unusual to do these collaborative works,” he says. “They’ve also never been exhibited before.”

Katsiff’s work might be on view on the Michener Art Museum till August 2, 2026.

“Museums are really fabulous places,” he says. “I hope my legacy is simply that this institution continues.”

Katsiff might be giving a chat on the ‘History of Photography Before the Digital Revolution’ on Wednesday, May 13 from 1 p.m. – 2 p.m. on the Michener Art Museum.

For extra info:

Michener Art Museum
Bruce Katsiff – “Pieces of a Life”
Tickets for Artist Talk – ‘History of Photography Before the Digital Revolution with Bruce Katsiff’

Michener Art Museum
138 S. Pine Street
Doylestown, PA 18901