Baked goods and beautiful art

If you’ve been to the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown you have seen and enjoyed the work of
Ben Solowey (1900-1978). Twice a year the gracious residents of the famous Bucks County artist’s home and studio open the property for art lovers to appreciate the beautiful house and grounds that inspired Ben Solowey. What does this have to do with food? Read on.

Every weekend this month, from
1 – 5 pm, you’ll be able to visit Ben Solowey’s home and studio, and tomorrow, Saturday, June 5th is the opening reception. David Leopold, Director of the Studio of Ben Solowey in Bedminster, contacted me recently to tell me about the “best kept secret in Bucks County:”

At our openings we open the Solowey home where my wife and I live with our 8 year-old son. The 1765 home is filled with period furniture hand-made by Ben and our extended family cover all the flat surfaces with homemade baked goods. It is definitely not the standard wine and cheese fare. The tradition was started by mother who did not live in the area, but her baked goods became so well known that when she died 4 years ago, both the Intelligencer and the Herald ran obits for people who had enjoyed her recipes. We still make many of the same recipes (and a few new ones).

Twice a year we host receptions on Saturday afternoons for new interpretive exhibitions of Ben Solowey’s work, his contemporaries, and contemporary artists whose work resonates with Ben’s. His studio is located on a 34 acre farm, and the views from the studio are virtually the same as when Ben arrived in 1936. The artist felt he saw a landscape to paint every time he looked out his studio window.

“When you visit the studio of Ben Solowey, you do more than see an exhibition, you enter an artist’s world,” wrote Edward Sozanski, Philadelphia Inquirer Art Critic. “The charm of [the Studio] is its sense of intimacy and immediacy. Nothing is under glass or roped; rather, it conveys the uncanny feeling that Solowey has just stepped away from his easel and will be back any minute….you couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.”

We’re called the “best kept secret in Bucks County” because there are no large signs or even lots of attendant publicity because this is an intimate world and our goal is not the quantity of people, but rather the quality time they spend here. Over 18 years of regular shows, our audience is in the thousands and we’ll have several hundred pass through our doors over the next four weekends. Our openings are laid back all afternoon affairs with folks wandering between the house and studio.

What a perfect way to spend a beautiful summer afternoon. To learn more visit their Web site where there is information about the exhibit and directions to the studio.

The Studio of Ben Solowey
3551 Olde Bedminster Road
Bedminster, Pennsylvania 18910
215.795.0228