The last months of the millennium are the perfect time to
contemplate the vision of peace on earth in the Peaceable
Kingdom paintings of Edward Hicks (1780-1849). Hicks, a
Pennsylvania sign painter and Quaker preacher, painted over 100
different versions of the Peaceable Kingdom. Only 62 still
exist, and each is an icon of American art. Remarkably, 25
Peaceable Kingdoms have been gathered together for the
exhibition "The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks" at the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, Oct. 10, 1999-Jan. 2, 2000. Carolyn J. Weekley,
director of museums for Colonial Williamsburg (including the
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center), organized this
quintessential Hicks show, which charts the development of the
paintings and the life of their talented and temperamental
creator. Hicks did not start out as a Quaker. He wasn't even
particularly religious. While some of his family were Quakers,
his parents were Anglicans, and lost much of their wealth and
status during the Revolutionary War. When his mother died only