Now through June 5, the Palmer Museum of Art will be exhibiting several preparatory sketches by Henry Varnum Poor.

Poor is best known to Penn State as the artist commissioned to paint the frescoes in Old Main during the 1940's.

"The murals are historical," Robin Seymour, Coordinator of Membership and Public Relations for the Palmer Museum said. "They are more than just a landscape or a portrait."

The process that Poor employed in the creation of the frescoes was a complex one.

"He traced his full-sized preparatory drawings on large sheets of transparent paper," Charles V. Hallman Curator Patrick McGrady said. "After the plaster had been applied, he laid these tracings onto the wall."

The outlines of the tracings were then scored around with a stylus, which would recreate the drawing in the plaster.

"He used the scorings as guides for redrawing the images," McGrady said. "If you look closely at the frescoes in Old Main, you can see that these scorings still exist in many areas."

The sketches that are on display serve to show the process by which the murals were created.

"It is fascinating, because very rarely do you get to see the steps an artist took to get through to the final process," Museum Educator, Dana Carlisle Kletchka said.

Due to his enlistment in World War II, Poor had to complete the frescoes in two sections.

"There is a video in the exhibit that was filmed during the second portion of the mural painting that shows the process of how they were created," Kletchka said.

In a sense the exhibition is a historical documentation of the process by which Poor created his pieces and of the creation of the Old Main frescoes.

"It is a great time to have the exhibit, because it coincides with Penn State's Sesquicentennial celebration," Seymour said.

Preparatory sketches of the Old Main frescoes are not the only pieces to be enjoyed in the collection.

"He is known for more than just mural painting," Seymour said. "There are other paintings and drawings in the collection as well."

In addition to the collection, at 3:30 p.m. Sunday Richard Porter, author of Henry Varnum Poor: 1887-1970 and graduate of Penn State, will be giving a lecture on Henry Varnum Poor and the Penn State Land Grant Frescoes.

The lecture will take place in Palmer Lipcon Auditorium in the Palmer Museum of Art.