Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land, an exhibition created by the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles, is on display in Borland Gallery, Penn State University NOW - Saturday and Sunday, September 8 and Sunday September 9. It’s free and open 10.0am - 4.00pm each day. Borland Gallery is in the Borland Building, Curtain Road - it’s a couple of buildings from the Palmer Museum, heading towards Beaver Stadium.
The exhibition is a part of the Woody at 100: A Centennial Celebration conference being held at Penn State on Saturday, September 8, and is co-curated by the GRAMMY Museum, Woody Guthrie Archives in New York, and Nora Guthrie.
While ballads — songs that tell stories — were his forte, Guthrie also wrote novels, essays and poems, and drew hundreds of visual images. The Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land exhibition showcases examples of these and includes pictures of his childhood in Okemah, OKla.; sketches of his life fleeing the great Dust Devil; and manuscripts of letters and songs written as he traveled to California and experienced scorn, discrimination and hatred by native Californians who resented the massive migration of ‘Okie’ outsiders. The common theme to the items on display is that they chronicle the struggle of working people, the disenfranchised, downtrodden, and overworked, and the children who suffered because of this. The exhibition includes 32 framed works.
The exhibition in Borland Gallery is sponsored by Dean R. Phillips, Esq. and the Phillips’ family in memory of Penn State Professor Emeritus Gerald M. Phillips and coordinated by the School of Visual Arts.
