Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

The 1844 Board of Directors' declaration that women artists "would have exclusive use of the statue gallery for professional purposes" and study time in the museum on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings signified a significant advance towards formal training in art for women.[11] Prior to the founding of the Academy, there were limited opportunities for women to receive professional art training in the United States. This period between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries shows a remarkable growth of formally trained women artists.

By 1860 female students were allowed to take anatomy and antique courses, drawing from antique casts.[12] In addition, women enjoyed their newly acquired library and gallery access. Life classes, the study of the nude body, were available to women in the spring of 1868 with female models; male models were added for study six years later. This came after much debate on whether it was appropriate for women to view the nude male form.

It took 24 years before women could take full advantage of all aspects of training at the prestigious institution.[13] After 1868 women took more active leadership roles and achieved influential positions. For example, in 1878 Catherine Drinker, at the age of 27, became the first woman to teach at the academy.[14] One of her pupils, her younger cousin Cecilia Beaux, would leave a lasting legacy at the academy as the first female faculty member to instruct painting and drawing, beginning in 1895.[15] By the 1880s women artists competed with men for top accolades and recognition. Not until much later, however, did the academy gain its first woman on the Board of Directors in 1950.

Even as women artists were making progress in the United States, they had difficulty studying in Europe. Many of the famous and state-run academies, such as the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, actively excluded women until the late 19th century, and many of the only opportunities available were through privately run, less prestigious art schools or ateliers of artists.[16] Women who chose to travel overseas typically studied the works of master artists in the galleries, not in classes.

In 2010, The Academy acquired the Linda Lee Alter Collection of Art by Women, nearly 500 works by female artists, from collector Linda Lee Alter. Artists in the collection include those of international renown, such as Louise Bourgeois, Judy Chicago, Louise Nevelson, Kiki Smith and Kara Walker, as well renowned Philadelphia artists including Elizabeth Osborne. In 2012, The Academy featured the collection in the exhibition The Female Gaze: Women Artists Making Their World. [16]

Since its founding, the Academy has collected works by leading American artists, as well as works by distinguished alumni and faculty of its school. Today, the Academy maintains its collecting tradition with the inclusion of works by modern and contemporary American artists. Acquisitions and exhibition programs are balanced between historical and contemporary art, and the museum continues to show works by contemporary regional artists and features annual displays of work by Academy students. The collection is installed in a chronological and thematic format, exploring the history of American art from the 1760s to the present.

The Academy was well known for its longstanding 4-year Certificate Program. Since 1929, qualified students were able to apply for and receive a coordinated Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the University of Pennsylvania. Another BFA degree program is offered exclusively in-house (a recent addition) its Master of Fine Arts program, a Post Baccalaureate Certificate in Graduate Studies, and extensive continuing education offerings, as well as programs for children and families.

In 2005, the Academy received the National Medal of Arts recognizing it as a leader in fine arts education.[1]

In January 2007, the Academy, in association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, purchased Thomas Eakins's work The Gross Clinic from the Jefferson Medical School. This seminal American work will be displayed at both institutions on a rotating basis.

In January 2009, PAFA signed a historic transfer agreement with Camden County College, New Jersey.[17] The "Camden Connection" allows for the transfer of liberal arts and studio classes as well as providing, on a competitive basis, for partial merit scholarships specifically for Camden County College students. Other transfer agreements are now in place with the following community college art departments: Community College of Philadelphia, Montgomery County Community College, Atlantic Cape Community College, and Northampton Community College.

In 2013, PAFA received Middle States Commission for Higher Education (MSCHED) accreditation.

PAFA had offered a major in the Certificate and the Bachelor of Fine Arts Program.

Starting in Summer 2015, PAFA began offering a low-residency Master of Fine Arts program.

Since Fall 2015, PAFA offers courses in fine arts illustration, which complements painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture courses.

The current museum building began construction in 1871 and opened in 1876 in connection with the Philadelphia Centennial. Designed by the American architects Frank Furness and George Hewitt, it has been called "One of the most magnificent Victorian buildings in the country."[7] The building's facade draws from a number of different historical styles, including Second Empire, Renaissance Revival and Gothic Revival, amalgamated in an "aggressively personal manner".[7] The building's exterior coloration combines "rusticated brownstone, dressed sandstone, polished pink granite, red pressed brick, and purplish terra-cotta."[7]

Interior of the Furness-Hewitt building

The inside of the building is equally varied, combining "gilt floral patterns incised on a field of Venetian red; ... [a] cerulean blue ceiling sprinkled with silver stars", and plum, ochre, sand and olive green gallery walls. The building's structure combines brick, stone and iron; because of fire-proofing concerns, some of the iron i-beams were left uncovered.[7]

1876 opening notes:

The newly-built Academy of Fine Arts will bear comparison with any institution of its kind in America. It has a front of one hundred feet on Broad Street and a depth of two hundred and fifty-eight feet on Cherry Street. Its situation, with a street on each of its three sides, and an open space along a considerable portion of the fourth, is very advantageous as regards lighting, and freedom from risk by fire.

It is built of brick, the principal entrance, which is two stories high, being augmented with encaustic tiles, terra-cotta statuary, and light stone dressings. The walls are laid in patterns of red and white brick. Over the main entrance on Broad Street there is a large Gothic window with stone tracery. The Cherry Street front is relieved by a colonnade supporting arched windows, back of which is the transept and pointed gable.

Beyond the entrance vestibule is the main staircase, which starts from a wide hall and leads to the galleries on the second floor. Along the Cherry Street side of the Academy are five galleries arranged for casts from the antique; and, further on, are rooms for drapery painting, and the life class. These have a clear north light which can never be obstructed.

On the south side, there is a large lecture room, with retiring rooms, and back of these are the modeling rooms and rooms devoted to the use of students and professors.

On the second floor is the main hall, which extends across the building, and is intended for the exhibition of large works of art. This story is divided into galleries, which are lighted from the top. Through the center runs a hall which is set apart for the exhibition of statuary, busts, small statues, bas-reliefs, etc. On each side of this hall are picture galleries, which are so arranged in size and form as to admit of classification of pictures, and which can be divided into suits where separate exhibitions may be held at the same time.

The art collections of the gallery are considered the most valuable in America. They comprise the masterpieces of Stuart, Sully, Allston, West, and others of our early artists, the Gilpin gallery, fine marbles, and facsimiles of famous statues, as well as a magnificent gallery from the antique.[18]

The Academy building is Furness's best known work, and served to establish him as one of the country's top architects.[19] Despite being initially praised by critics, by the turn of the century, tastes had changed and the building was not considered appealing. Eventually, steps were taken to obscure its ornamentation to "modernize" it.

In the post-World War II era, the building was newly appreciated again, with the growth in the historic preservation movement making people more aware of treasures from the past. The building is now considered a masterpiece, one of the greatest buildings in Philadelphia and arguably Furness's greatest work. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975.[20] In 1976 the building was fully restored, both its interiors and exteriors, to coincide with its centennial and with the United States bicentennial. The restoration work was conducted through Day and Zimmerman Associates, and headed by Human Myers.[21]

In 2002, Dorrance H. Hamilton made a large donation to the Academy for its expansion. It purchased the former automobile factory at 128 N. Broad Street, next to the original building. Designed by Charles Oelschlager, the building had formerly been used as a federal building.

The structure was renamed in memory of her husband, Samuel M.V. Hamilton. It was renovated and the School of Fine Arts of the Academy completed its move there in September 2006. The building also contains a special exhibition space called the Fisher Brooks Gallery, named after James R. Fisher, an artist who attended PAFA in the late 1880s, and Leonie Brooks. They are the grandfather and mother, respectively, of Marguerite Lenfest, a philanthropist and PAFA board member. The Hamilton building also houses Portfolio, the museum's gift shop.

• Widener Gold Medal: The Academy established the George D. Widener Gold Medal for sculpture in 1912. Widener was a businessman and director of the Academy who died on the RMS Titanic. The award recognizes the "most meritorious work of Sculpture modeled by an American citizen and shown in the Annual Exhibition".[24]

• Beck Gold Medal: The Carol H. Beck Gold Medal was awarded to the best portrait by an American artist exhibited at PAFA's annual exhibition. It was awarded from 1909 to 1968.
• Mary Smith Prize: The Mary Smith Prize was awarded to "the Painter of the best painting (not excluding portraits) exhibiting at the Academy, painted by a resident woman Artist."[25] It was awarded from 1879 to 1968.
• Temple Gold Medal: The Joseph Temple Fund Gold Medal was awarded to the best oil painting by an American artist exhibited at PAFA's annual exhibition. It was awarded from 1883 to 1968.