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New Jersey's largest county by area reaches from the Delaware River towns to the edge of the Pine Barrens, and its art is spread just as widely. A town-by-town guide to Burlington County.
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Burlington is New Jersey’s largest county by area and the largest in South Jersey by number of municipalities, forty in all, reaching from the Delaware River towns in the west to the edge of the Pine Barrens in the east. Its art is spread just as widely, from a regional powerhouse in Moorestown to free county galleries tucked inside a restored industrial village, a nineteenth-century arts hall in Burlington City, and community theatres and galleries in the old river and mill towns between. What follows is a guide to those spaces, gathered town by town.
A quick note: opening hours, locations, websites and programming can change over time. Please confirm the details with each venue before you plan your visit.
Gallery
A jewel-box fine art gallery on Farnsworth Avenue, representing painters of regional, national and international reputation. Owner CJ Mugavero has been connecting collectors with original work since 1986.
Arts Center
An arts and education centre in an 1839 landmark two blocks from the Delaware, presenting concerts, exhibitions, plays, classes and camps in the spirit of the building’s original use as a hall for orators and performers.
Theater
A long-running community theatre company drawing performers from across the county, with a full season of intimate productions, a children’s theatre, and a student intern company that mounts full-scale shows.
Gallery
A free county-run gallery upstairs in the historic Smithville Mansion, home to the annual juried show, teen arts exhibit and senior art show, all set within the restored Victorian village of Historic Smithville Park.
Gallery · Museum
A restored 1860s workers’ duplex in Smithville village, now a free gallery for quilts, pottery, glass and other handcrafted and functional art, with rotating exhibits and art programs throughout the year.
Museum
Set in the 1907 main gate of the former Roebling steel works, this museum tells the story of the company town through five exhibition galleries with changing shows, and runs an artist-in-residence program for local and regional artists.
Arts Center
A nonprofit arts centre in the heart of Medford Village with a main gallery and performance space, a boutique, and classes, anchoring the monthly Medford Art Walk and the annual Art, Wine and Music Festival.
Gallery · Framing
A family-owned gallery and conservation framing shop in the MedLake Center, in Medford since 1973, showing limited-edition prints and fine art alongside custom, needlework and shadowbox framing done on the premises.
Arts Center
The county’s flagship arts centre, housed in a 1910 Tudor home and recognised by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts as a Major Presenting Organization. Since 1977 Perkins has offered exhibitions, a conservatory of music, classes and concerts across South Jersey.
Theater
A community theatre and performing-arts education organisation on West Main Street, offering classes, camps and full productions for youth and adults alike.
Gallery
Mount Holly’s contemporary art gallery on historic High Street, showing painting, ceramics, sculpture and furniture by regional and national artists.
Gallery
A Burlington County Parks art gallery in the restored 1888 warden’s house attached to the National Historic Landmark prison, showing emerging artists and the Hugh Campbell Collection throughout the year.
From the pocket gallery on Farnsworth Avenue to the county’s free galleries at Smithville, Burlington rewards the curious with more art than its quiet main streets let on. Beyond the doors listed here, organisations without a fixed address keep the county’s cultural calendar full year-round, among them the Haaf Family Arts Foundation in Beverly, South Jersey Pops in Evesham, In FACT’s folk arts series in Willingboro, and the Little Egg Theatre Company down in New Gretna. Next in the series we cross into another county and keep the map growing, one town at a time.
About the author
CreARTivity Educational Team
The Educational Team writes CreARTivity's reference work: histories of artistic disciplines, guides to cultural traditions, and the county-by-county surveys of arts institutions across New Jersey. Its brief is to be useful to someone meeting a subject for the first time and still worth reading to someone who already knows it. Edited by Marie Juliane David.
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