Michener Added to Creative Bucks Exhibit

One of Bucks County’s favorite sons — the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Tales of the South Pacific and dozens of other literary works — has been honored in an exhibit that was once housed in his own museum.

The James A. Michener installment of the Creative Bucks County exhibit was unveiled Tuesday by Visit Bucks County, the county’s official tourism agency, at its on Street Road.

Bensalem Mayor Joseph DiGirolamo, Visit Bucks board member Michael Etzrodt, Michener Trustee Bill Brenner and several other local officials were on hand to open the new installment.

Michener, who grew up in Doylestown, is one of a number of artistic souls who have called Bucks County home over the years. Others include: author Pearl S. Buck, lyricist Oscar Hammerstein and writer Dorothy Parker.

These artists and several more are celebrated in the Creative Bucks multimedia exhibit, which opened in 1996 at the James A. Michener Museum in Doylestown while the author was still alive. It then moved to the museum’s New Hope satellite branch in 2003 before being donated to when the satellite closed in 2009.

While he was alive, Michener didn’t want to be included in the exhibit.

“He was adamant frankly that he would not be among the artists that were honored as part of the exhibit,” said Brenner. “Now however it is appropriate and exciting for us as members of the museum.”

Etzrod agreed with Brenner.

“Mr. Michener, being a modest man, wouldn’t let them do an exhibit about him,” said Etzrod. “So we did it.”

Etzrodt said he had the pleasure of meeting Michener “in his younger years” and was glad to see the author added to the exhibit during his lifetime.

DiGirolamo thanked Etzrodt for his work in bringing this exhibit to the Visitor Center in Bensalem and now for adding Michener to the exhibit.

“It’s a great day for Bensalem and Bucks County,” he said.

Brenner agreed that the Visitor Center was the best place for the exhibit.

“It’s a perfect, perfect location so it’s not only visitors to Bucks County, but county residents as well that can come here and learn something about the art history of the county,” he said.

“We are overjoyed to welcome the James A. Michener installation to the Creative Bucks County exhibit at the Visitor Center,” Visit Bucks director Jerry Lepping said. “This allows the building to become more than an information center, we are now an experience that demonstrates an impressive list of inspiring people that have graced Bucks County’s countryside.”

Other artists included in Creative Bucks County: A Celebration of Art and Artists are: Pennsylvania Impressionist painters Daniel Garber and Edward Redfield; playwright Moss Hart; American primitive painter Edward Hicks; playwright George S. Kaufman; architect, artist and collector Henry Chapman Mercer; humorist S. J. Perelman; Precisionist painter and photographer Charles Sheeler; and writer Jean Toomer, an important author of the Harlem Renaissance.

The Visitor Center and this exhibit is open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call (215) 639-0300 or visit VisitBucksCounty.com.