Philadelphia Museum of Art

Museums

Rising majestically at the end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the Philadelphia Museum of Art stands among the great art institutions of the world.

In the more than 125 years since its founding, it has grown far beyond the limits originally set for it. Today the museum houses more than 300,000 works of art encompassing some of the greatest achievements of human creativity, and it offers a wealth of exhibitions and education programs for a public of all ages.

Historically, the Philadelphia Museum of Art was a legacy of the great Centennial Exposition of 1876, held in Fairmount Park. In March 1873, an act of the Pennsylvania State Legislature set in motion plans for the construction of a permanent fireproof building, to be designed by Hermann J. Schwarzmann, in West Fairmount Park, Memorial Hall.

By 1923, the terracing of the granite hill at Fairmount Park had been completed and the foundations of the building, as well as the broad steps leading up to it from street level, had been laid.

Designed as a vast neoclassical temple with wings embracing an open court, the museum's two outlying pavilions were constructed first in order to ensure a continued flow of city funds to complete the connecting central structure. Even before the shell of the building was finished, temporary galleries had been opened, in 1924, on the schedule imposed by the wills of George W. Elkins and his father, William, and that of John H. McFadden.

They had bequeathed magnificent painting collections on the condition that suitable galleries in the projected building be prepared within a reasonable period of time following their deaths. In March 1928, the first finished section of the new museum's interior, devoted to British and American art, was formally opened to the public.

The Great Depression of the 1930s was a period of retrenchment for the museum. Funds from the hard-pressed city were sharply reduced, and work on permanent construction in the vast, unfinished interior was suspended for a time, upon the exhaustion of old appropriations.

However, significant help was forthcoming from the federal government, and with the aid of grants, chiefly for skilled labor, from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), work on gallery construction and installation was able to proceed.

In celebration of the museum's centennial, more than 500 works of art were received in 1976, as part of the "Gifts to Mark a Century" campaign. The Woodward Foundation donated an important group of contemporary American paintings, strengthening the museum's position as a serious collector of works by living artists.

This outpouring of generosity was most gratifying for an institution that has always depended heavily on private donations for the growth of its collections. More than 90 percent of the 300,000 objects in the museum have come as gifts from individuals and foundations.

The 1980s proved to be one of the most active periods in museum history for major acquisitions. It is rare for a single gift to noticeably transform a museum. However, the receipt in 1986, of the Henry P. McIlhenny Collection was such an event. The collection included masterpieces of 19th-century French painting and drawings by such artists as Ingres, Seurat, Van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec, as well as a broad range of decorative arts.

In 1990, the museum was able to acquire a superb 18th-century Philadelphia secretary bookcase, unmatched in importance in any public collection, and a spellbinding Mannerist masterpiece by the 16th-century Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius. Having been the first American museum to purchase a major painting by the African American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner in 1899, the museum was delighted to acquire, in 1993, the tender and eloquent portrait of the artist's mother.