From the School Collection

Each plaster figure standing in this gallery began as a student's three-day deadline. PAFA's Edmund Stewardson Prize, first awarded in 1901, asks for a full-length figure modelled from life, in the round, within eighteen hours over three consecutive days. The Academy's 1960s rules split that into six three-hour sessions, for a figure between two and a half and three feet tall. That's six Eagles games' worth of clay.

The casts of those prize figures share the Tuttleman Sculpture Gallery in the Hamilton Building with cast drawings by PAFA students and faculty from more than 140 years, including former teachers Thomas Anschutz, Daniel Garber and Harry Rosen. You are looking at coursework: drawing from plaster casts became a foundation course once the casts moved into the school studios after 1880, and students still take it.

It's one gallery, for anyone curious how American artists have been trained. Entry comes with PAFA admission, which covers both buildings: $25, or $15 on Fridays from 5 to 8pm.