Departures - and arrivals - on the gallery scene

This spring marks the last season for two notable Philadelphia galleries. Rosenfeld Gallery, an Old City institution, will say goodbye in June after about 30 years on Arch Street - its owners, Richard and Barbara Rosenfeld, are retiring to Gainesville, Fla., though the gallery may continue under new ownership in another location. Also being shuttered is Martin McNamara's terrific photography gallery, Gallery 339, on Feb. 28 after a 10-year run. "I'm looking forward to a new adventure," McNamara says, "and I'm happy with what we were able to do." Changes are afoot for Gallery Joe, too. It will move from its current location on Arch Street in June and reemerge in South Kensington, near the Crane Arts Building.

Otherwise, expect a season of shows whose presence in Philadelphia at more or less the same time seems oddly coincidental, from Chakaia Booker's sculptures made with cut car tires, to Zoe Strauss' searing photographic meditations on climate change, to Michael Mazur's images of hell, to Moore College of Art & Design's investigation of the uncanny in art.

- Edith Newhall reviews gallery shows for The Inquirer  

George and Mira Nakashima: Keisho. Tucked alongside an allée of dawn redwoods that lend it a distinctly Asian character, Swarthmore College's List Gallery seems just the right venue for a show of work by renowned woodworker George Nakashima (1905-1990) and recent works in wood by his daughter, Mira, creative director of her father's New Hope woodworking atelier (March 4-April 5). www.swarthmore.edu/list-gallery.xml).

Zoe Strauss: Sea Change. The Philadelphia photographer traveled to Mississippi, Louisiana, Staten Island, and Toms River, N.J., to capture the devastating effects of climate change and ecological disasters. Her show at Haverford College's Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery will feature 52 works, including photographs, vinyl prints and projected images (through March 6). www.haverford.edu/exhibits.

Michael Mazur: The Inferno of Dante. A series of etchings by the late artist illustrating poet Robert Pinsky's translation of Dante's epic poem, at the Print Center (April 17- July 11). www.printcenter.org.

Chakaia Booker: Are We There Yet? Organized by Susan Isaacs for Drexel's Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, a survey of the New York artist's remarkably eloquent sculptures assembled from discarded tires (through March 8). www.drexel.edu/westphal.

Paul Lee. Assemblages of tactile everyday objects and materials that recall the early works of Robert Rauschenberg, by a British artist based in Brooklyn, at UArts' Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery (through Feb. 28). www.uarts.edu/about/rosenwald-wolf-gallery.

The Sky's Gone Out. An exploration of the uncanny in art, design, music, and film that takes Sigmund Freud's 1919 essay, "The Uncanny," as a starting point and includes, among many other unsettling things, historic photographs of séances; contemporary artworks by Gabriela Fridriksdottir, Hanna Liden, and Chloe Piene; a Herbie Hancock music video directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Créme, and sound recordings of paranormal phenomena, at Moore College of Art & Design (through March 14). www.thegalleriesatmoore.org.

Paul Swenbeck. New ceramics in fantastical forms inspired by archeology, science fiction, and botany; ceramic "paintings," and photographs that suggest the visual recording of dreams or spirit photographs, at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery. (March 26-May 30). 215-545-7562 or www.fleisher-ollmangallery.com.

 It's a Long Way to Tipperary. At Gallery 339, works by photographers who have shown their work at this gallery over the last 10 years (Feb. 6-28). 215-731-1530 or www.gallery339.com.

Eileen Neff: Traveling Into View. Photos and mixed-media works of the bird and plant life of Costa Rica, where she had an artist's residency last January, at Bridgette Mayer Gallery (March 4-April 18). 215-413-8893 or www.bridgettemayergallery.com.

Martha Groome. The artist's first solo show at Larry Becker Contemporary Art, of new abstract paintings (March 7-April 18). 215-925-5389 or www.artnet.com/lbecker.html.

Ellen Harvey and Ena Swansea: Sight Unseen. Recent engraved works on mirrored Plexiglas by the former, and oil-on-graphite paintings by the latter, at Locks Gallery (through Feb. 29). 215-629-1000 or www.locksgallery.com.

In Line: Sharon Etgar, German Stegmaier, Lynne Woods Turner. Drawings on paper that emphasize line, at Gallery Joe (through Feb. 28). 215-592-7752 or www.galleryjoe.com.

Osvaldo Romberg. The Philadelphia- and Tel Aviv-based Argentine artist's first solo show with Pentimenti Gallery, of recent paintings and sculpture (April 17-May 30). 215-625-9990 or www.pentimenti.com.

Rebecca Saylor Sack. Vividly colored, expressionistic paintings of wildflowers and weeds growing in wild abandon, at Seraphin Gallery (Feb. 27 -April 5). 215-923-7000 or www.seraphingallery.com.

Hanna Hannah. New works on paper at Schmidt Dean Gallery that depict images of war embedded in decorative floral motifs (March 28-May 2). 215-569-9433 or www.schmidtdean.com.