Light Exhibition

[Ed Covington]

Your viewers might be interested in knowing that there is to be a Light Exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, 6 April - 29 July, 2001. The exhibit will show changes in lighting from 1750 to 1900. Talks and tours are planned. A CD-ROM has been produced and, among other things, it will demonstrate the differences perceived by the observer of a work of art under differing lighting schemes. On loan for the exhibit will be eleven incandescent lamps from the William J. Hammer Collection, now housed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. These lamps are: 1883 Siemens, 1880 Maxim, 1882 Lane-Fox (which was acquired by Hammer at the 1882 Crystal Palace Electrical Exposition), 1881 Lane-Fox, 1882 Swan (a lamp presented to Hammer by Joseph Swan at the Royal Institution), 1889 Thomson-Houston, 1888 Hammer (designed by Hammer and taken to the Paris Exposition in 1889), 1883 Maxim, 1883 Cruto, 1885 Bernstein and 1904 Nernst. More information regarding this exhibit can be learned by going to the website: http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/light/english/index.html

[This message has been edited by tim (edited February 22, 2001).]

[Ed Covington]

Collectors of early incandescent lamps might be interested to know that another historic lamp will be added to those to be shown at the Light Exhibition. It is one of the 60 or so lamps that were mounted on outside poles at Menlo Park in December, 1879. This is a lamp that Thomas Edison presented to W.J. Hammer for his collection. A representation  of this lamp can be seen on page 59 of Howell and Schroeder's book (in the New York Herald article). This is the design after which replicas are fashioned.