Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ArtsCenter City
A Nation of Artists
Reopening the Historic Landmark Building for PAFA's 220th anniversary: over 1,000 works from the late 18th century to today, including 100+ pieces from the Middleton Family Collection.
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On a sunny morning, the Inquirer's Peter Dobrin wrote, the grand stair hall here practically vibrates: marble sculptures glow and the stars-on-cobalt pattern under the skylight seems to shower down. He called the reopening of PAFA's 1876 Furness and Hewitt building a "crisp reset".
American art from the late 18th century to now hangs by theme rather than date, under headings like Looking West, with loans from the Middleton Family Collection on public view for the first time. You walk from Winslow Homer's Fox Hunt to Jasper Johns's Flag, bought at auction in 2010 for $28.6 million by John Middleton, managing partner of the Phillies.
The light cuts both ways. Dobrin found The Gross Clinic washed out by the nearby rose window, and the Broad Street Review called the hang over-designed, with high salon stacks and tiny labels. The other half of the show is at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on a separate discounted ticket. Here adults pay $25, or $15 on Fridays from 5 to 8pm.
Editor's pick
More than 1,000 works from the late 18th century to today fill Frank Furness's reopened Historic Landmark Building for PAFA's 220th anniversary, including over 100 from the Middleton Family Collection.
Look for
The grand stair hall
Look up: marble sculptures such as Thomas Crawford's Peri at the Gates of Paradise sit beneath a skylight patterned with stars on cobalt.
Eakins's The Gross Clinic
The 1875 surgery scene, surgeons' hands red with blood, now hangs near the rose window, which the Inquirer says washes it out.
Minerva Cuevas, The End (2016)
The lower half of the canvas tears away, dripping with actual tar.
Harriet Hosmer, Puck on a Toadstool (1856)
A small marble sprite crouched on a toadstool that the Inquirer's critic thought looked ready to shape-shift and break out of the stone.
George Ault, Black Night: Russell's Corners (1943)
A rural scene at night under flat, cold electric light, a picture the Inquirer says can only be appreciated in person.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- First-Timers
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Skip if
You need to read every label: the type is tiny and some works hang high in salon stacks.
With kids
Children 12 and under get in free and ages 13 to 17 pay $5. There are elevators to every level.
Free in the same building
Plan a visit to Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ArtsAlso at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
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Image credits
8
- You Stretched Diagonally Across It: Contemporary TapestryPhoto credit: Constance Mensh.
- Botany of NationsCourtesy of Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
- Native Plants on the Parkway: A Botany of Nations GardenCourtesy of Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
- Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ArtsDifference engine, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- The Fabric Workshop and MuseumJohn Phelan, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel Universityajay_suresh, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Vox PopuliVox Populi
- The Franklin Instituteajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0