PAFA to mount definitive exhibition on African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- A major exhibition of artwork by African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner will premiere at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, on view from January 27 through April 15, 2012. Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit will contain over 100 works, including 12 paintings that have never been shown in a Tanner retrospective and the only two known sculptures that Tanner completed. The exhibition also includes Tanner’s famed Resurrection of Lazarus, from the collection of the Musée d’Orsay, a career-making canvas [...]

Demuth Museum to open exhibition by father and son artist duo: “The Newswangers”

LANCASTER, PA.- The Demuth Museum presents its next exhibition, Chasing Inspiration: The Art of the Newswangers, to open on September 2. The father and son artist duo of Vernon Kiehl Newswanger (1900-1980) and Christian Newswanger (1927-2005) may be best known for their depictions of the Amish way of life in Lancaster County. However, in examining these two artists separately, one will see that they each developed a unique perspective. Kiehl and Christian wrote and illustrated the well-known book Amishland in 1954; however, not [...]

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Installs Claes Oldenburg Sculpture in Lenfest Plaza

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts commissioned world-renowned artist Claes Oldenburg to create a new public artwork for its Lenfest Plaza. The design consists of a 51 foot high sculpture in the form of a paintbrush, raised at a 60 degree angle as if in the act of painting, with a 6-ft paint glob on the ground below. The sculpture is positioned between PAFA’s Historic Landmark Building and the Samuel M.V. Hamilton Buildings. Oldenburg titled the work Paint Torch, [...]

Abstract Expressionism and Its Discontents at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Abstract Expressionism and its Discontents, a new installation at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) on view through August 28, 2011, revisits the post-World War II art movement to include artists historically not associated with Abstract Expressionism. When in 1946 New Yorker critic Robert Coates identified an expressive, gestural and subjective approach towards abstract painting in American art, he inadvertently gave the name to a style popularly known as “Abstract Expressionism.” Although it has come to describe [...]

The Sorgenti Collection of Contemporary African-American Art at the Hudson River Museum

YONKERS, NY.- The Chemistry of Color titles a bold and vibrant collection of paintings from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), which opens at the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, on February 5.Works by African – American artists from a key period in American art — the 1970s through the 90s― show artists in the forefront of changes that began a decade before with the Civil Rights Movement. The Hudson River Museum is the only venue for this exhibition [...]

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Names Harry Philbrick as Director of Museum

PHILADELPHIA, PA .- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) announced that Harry Philbrick has been named The Edna S. Tuttleman Director of the Academy Museum , effective March 1, 2011. Since 1996, Harry Philbrick has been the Director of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Under his leadership at The Aldrich Museum, attendance tripled and the quality of the programs increased dramatically. Philbrick successfully spearheaded a $9 million capital campaign and a major museum campus expansion [...]

New Abstract Works by New York Painter John Zinsser at Graham Gallery

NEW YORK, NY.- An exhibition of new abstract works by New York painter John Zinsser is on view at Graham Gallery through January 4th, 2011. Zinsser’s current exhibition follows his installation of drawings in the main gallery last season, Art Dealer Archipelagoes, which charted the history of New York’s post-war gallery development through a series of “maps.” These new works on canvas again source that history, but through strictly formalist and quotational terms. As Zinsser describes, “Early attempts, with my own [...]

PAFA Receives Unprecedented Gift of Art by Philadelphia Collector Linda Lee Alter

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts announced a gift of the collection of art by women from Philadelphia art collector and artist Linda Lee Alter. This important collection, formed by an extraordinary person with a clear vision of how collecting can make a difference, includes approximately 400 works of art spanning the 1910s to the present in all media and by a wide range of artists from the well-known to the underappreciated. Alice Neel, Investigation of Poverty [...]

PAFA Announces Claes Oldenburg Sculpture Commission for Lenfest Plaza

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) has commissioned world-renowned artist Claes Oldenburg to create a new public artwork for its Lenfest Plaza. The design consists of a 53 foot high sculpture in the form of a paintbrush, raised at a 60 degree angle as if in the act of painting, with a dollop of paint on the ground below. The sculpture is positioned between PAFA’s Historic Landmark Building and the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building. Oldenburg’s [...]

Vogel Collection and Andy Warhol Polaroids at PAFA

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) presents two simultaneous exhibitions featuring gifts from Dorothy and Herbert Vogel and the The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States In 1992, Herbert and Dorothy Vogel pledged more than 2,000 paintings, drawings, and sculptures from their collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Subsequently, under the administration of the National Gallery, they have set about [...]

PAFA to Showcase Seminal Flag Painting by Celebrated Artist Jasper Johns

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- This summer, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) will feature JASPER JOHNS: FLAG, one of Johns’ most sensuously painted flags in a single-object exhibition, on view June 26 through September 12. An icon of modern art, Johns’ Flag (1960-66) has been exhibited only once before, and was recently sold at auction for a record price as part of the collection of the late Michael Crichton. Author, director, producer, screenwriter, and collector, Crichton made his fortune creating [...]

Eakins’s “The Gross Clinic” Restored and On View in Exhibition Exploring its History and Conservation

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- “The Gross Clinic” of 1875 is one of the most significant works created by the great Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) and a landmark in the history of 19th-century American art. A new exhibition—An Eakins Masterpiece Restored: Seeing ‘The Gross Clinic’ Anew, to be presented in the Pennsylvania Gallery of the Perelman Building, will enable visitors to see and understand this painting—its creation, its critical reception, and the physical changes it has experienced over time—in new ways. In [...]

The 18th USArtists American Fine Art Show & Sale to be Held in October

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Presented by the Women’s Board of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), the 18th USArtists American Fine Art Show & Sale, the largest exposition and sale of 18th- through 21st-Century American art in the nation, will be presented October 1 – 3, 2010 at PAFA. For the first time in its 18-year history, USArtists will be moving from its longtime venue at the 33rd Street Armory to its home at PAFA’s Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building at [...]

PAFA Acquires Works by Mark Bradford, Philip Evergood, and Lilly Martin Spencer

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) recently acquired the following three works: Mark Bradford’s Untitled (Dementia), 2009; Philip Evergood’s “Mine Disaster”, 1933/37; and Lilly Martin Spencer’s “Mother and Child” by the Hearth, 1867. Mark Bradford is internationally recognized as a leading artist of his generation. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship Genius Grant, Bucksbaum Award, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award. Major exhibitions include the Whitney [...]

PAFA’s Board of Trustees Approves Design Concepts for Lenfest Plaza

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- At the most recent meeting of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts‘ (PAFA) Board of Trustees, conceptual designs for the development of Lenfest Plaza were approved. David Rubin, Partner at landscape architectural firm OLIN, was contracted to design the plaza and presented his concepts to PAFA’s Board earlier this month. Open to the public twenty-four hours a day, PAFA’s Lenfest Plaza is a pedestrian court that will offer outdoor seating and host an upscale restaurant that will [...]

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