Norristown Residents Have Free Admission To Certain Museums

The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s new Inside Out initiative that brought art to the streets of Norristown is now giving borough residents the opportunity to visit several area museums free of charge.

Residents of both Norristown and Ambler, another Montgomery County town which the initiative has come to, will able to visit the Philadelphia Art Museum, the Rodin Museum, and the Mount Pleasant mansion for free.

“Inside Out” brought sixty high-quality replicas of some of the Museum’s - and the world’s - greatest works of art to neighborhoods in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Works of art are in weatherproof casing and located within a short distance of each other in parks and in bustling downtown neighborhoods.

Aiming to help residents ”encounter art in unexpected places,” some featured painters include: Claude Monet, Georgia O’Keefe, and Paul Gaugin.

In Norristown, the art is in 10 different locations, including:

• Norristown Municipal Building, 235 E. Airy St., Painting No. 4 (A Black Horse), 1915, by Marsden Hartley
• Theatre Horizon 401 DeKalb St., The Annunciation, 1898, by Henry Ossawa Tanner
• Old Montgomery County Prison E. Airy & Maris Sts., The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16, 1834, 1834–35, by Joseph Mallord William Turner
• Montgomery County Courthouse, Swede & W. Main Sts., Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, 1892 and 1908, by Thomas Moran
• Main Street Parking Garage, Swede & E. Main Sts., Bust of Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), 1779, by Jean-Antoine Houdon
• Montgomery County Intermediate, Unit 2 W. Lafayette St. Lotus, 19th century (Joseon Dynasty), 1392–1910, made in Korea
• Norristown Transportation Center, Lafayette & Swede Sts., Poplars on the Bank of the Epte River, 1891, by Claude Monet
• Poley Park, W. Marshall & Markley Sts., The Kiss, 1916, by Constantin Brancusi
• Selma Mansion, 1301 W. Airy St., Portrait of Master Bunbury, 1780–81, by Sir Joshua Reynolds
• Elmwood Park, Harding Blvd. ,Sugar Cane, 1931, by Diego Rivera
• Elmwood Park Zoo, 1661 Harding Blvd., Noah’s Ark, 1846, by Edward Hicks

The program, which runs from May through November, came to Norristown beginning on August 20.

In addition to Norristown, other participating towns include:

• Fishtown and Kensington, Philadelphia
• Ambler, PA
• Wayne, PA
• West Chester, PA
• Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy, Philadelphia
• East Passyunk, Philadelphia
• Haddonfield, NJ
• Media, PA
• Newtown, PA

Image courtesy Inside Out Arts Initiative.