Exhibitions

Weeds in the Voelker Orth Garden:
Watercolors by Cindy De la Cruz

On view through June 30

Each summer the Museum works with a talented group of interns. Cindy De la Cruz was a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2016 when she painted this series of plants. The common garden weeds may not have been welcomed by the Museum’s gardener, but Cindy captured their natural beauty nonetheless. The watercolor images also illustrate a pamphlet produced by the Museum with instructions on how to best remove each plant when they grow where not wanted.

Cindy De la Cruz went on to work as a children's books designer for Nancy Paulsen Books and Putnam Young Readers at Penguin Young Readers.

Lily and Lotus Photographs by Carlos Esguerra

July 7 - August 25

Lilies and lotus flowers are remarkable summer blooms. Over the centuries they have been imbued with symbolic meaning in the East and West. Captured in Carlos Esguerra’s photographs, these flower images are quite simply exquisite.

Carlos Esguerra, a Queens-based artist born in the Philippines, has received international recognition and awards for his landscape and fine arts photography since 1999. He devoted himself to photography following a career in the computer field.

Upon receiving an award in Linz, Austria, he was asked why he likes the “quiet” or “silent” style of photography. Esguerra replied he was influenced strongly by Japanese Zen principles. He said, "I strive to make my photographs simple, clean, and uncluttered".

Coming in September: Everything for Your Garden, a new series of prints by Kevin Duggan

Online exhibition:

Finding the Family: A Look into the Lives and Times of the Voelker-Orth Family

Finding the Family explores the lives of the Voelker Orth family through the local and historical happenings they experienced. The online exhibition highlights moments in the lives of Conrad, Theresa, and Elisabetha as we follow three generations of the family through the early 20th century.

The exhibition is organized by Carine Norvez, a tour guide at the Museum. She developed the exhibition while she was a CUNY Culture Corps intern studying items in our archive last year. Ms. Norvez has located period news articles and materials from a variety of sources to create a context for the papers and images left to the Museum. An audio text version accompanies the print.

Click here to see Finding the Family