Philadelphia mounts 250-year show
The Philadelphia Museum of Art and PAFA are collaborating on 'A Nation of Artists,' a major exhibition spanning 250 years of American art that the institutions are staging together as a joint project (whyy.org). The show is being presented across both institutions with distinct curatorial approaches at each venue, according to local reporting this weekend (whyy.org).
Philadelphia’s two biggest American art museums opened a joint exhibition on April 12 that stretches from the early 1700s to today. (philamuseum.org) “A Nation of Artists” is split between the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, with more than 1,000 works shown across both sites through 2027. The Philadelphia Museum of Art presentation runs to July 5, 2027; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts presentation runs to September 5, 2027. (philamuseum.org) (pafa.org) (visitpa.com) The show is timed to the United States semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary of 1776, and it pairs objects from the museums’ own holdings with more than 100 works from the private Middleton Family Collection. Local reporting said the institutions built the project as a shared exhibition with different curatorial approaches at each venue. (philamuseum.org) (pafa.org) (whyy.org) The Philadelphia Museum of Art organized its installation chronologically, tracing American art from 1700 to 1960 in its renovated American galleries. The museum says visitors move from Charles Willson Peale and Mary Cassatt to Horace Pippin and Mark Rothko. (philamuseum.org) (visitphilly.com) The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts took the opposite route, arranging works thematically inside its Historic Landmark Building, which reopened April 12 after a closure for building work. The academy says it also mixes in 21st-century artists so newer work appears beside art from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. (pafa.org) (hoodline.com) That split format turns one exhibition into two arguments about American art: one built as a timeline, the other as a set of cross-era conversations. Visit Philadelphia says the project asks who gets counted in the story of American creativity and puts Indigenous, African American, immigrant and other historically underrepresented artists alongside canonical names. (pafa.org) (visitphilly.com) (philamuseum.org) The scale is unusual for Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Museum of Art says the exhibition includes more than 120 Middleton works across the two venues, while the academy describes more than 100 from that collection; both institutions describe the overall show as more than 1,000 objects. (philamuseum.org) (pafa.org) Several anchor works are already being highlighted in previews, including Charles Willson Peale’s 1779 portrait of George Washington, Gilbert Stuart’s Lansdowne portrait of Washington, Jasper Johns’s “Flag,” and John Singer Sargent’s “Group With Parasols (A Siesta).” Visit Philadelphia also notes that Thomas Eakins’s “The Gross Clinic” is moving from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to a temporary display at the academy for this exhibition. (theartnewspaper.com) (visitphilly.com) (pafa.org) The collaboration also doubles as an institutional moment for both museums. The Philadelphia Museum of Art says 2026 marks its 150th anniversary, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts says the exhibition reopens its Frank Furness and George Hewitt landmark building as the academy marks its 220th anniversary. (visitphilly.com) (pafa.org) Visitors who want the full project have to see both halves. The museums are offering 50% off an adult general admission ticket at the second institution within seven days of purchase, and reciprocal free admission for members through August 31, 2026. (pafa.org)
