Baltimore's Painted Screens

On Saturday, my daughter Meagan, her husband Erik,
Lou and I went to an art exhibit at MICA
The Painted Screens of Baltimore and Beyond
Meagan works at the college and had asked if we would like to
go to the exhibit and I an so glad we did.

 Celebrating 100 Years of Painted Screens

 A Baltimore Tradition
1913-2013.
"You see out. No one sees in."

Growing up in Baltimore, I remember seeing many homes with painted screens on windows and screen doors.  Certainly not as popular now, but there is a house, a couple of blocks away, that has one of these works of art in one of its front windows.

Lou's Grandmother's rowhouse on Rose Street in Baltimore had a painted screen and the traditional white marble steps, which his Aunt Dot scrubbed every Saturday.

Picture Windows ... The Painted Screens of Baltimore and Beyond 
runs through March 16th in the Fox Building's Meyerhoff Gallery
1303 W. Mount Royal Ave.

A bit of history from

The Painted Screen Society of Baltimore

Only in Baltimore?

Rowhouses, attached homes sharing common walls, fill thousands of blocks of this major American city. The homes' windows face the street at eye level.  They provide the perfect outdoor gallery.  Only in Baltimore could you walk the streets of a living museum, and enjoy examples of the unique art form found on window and door screens throughout historic, primarily eastside communities. Painted screens are an authentic urban folk art, created, displayed and beloved here since 1913.