As the Nation Celebrates Its 250th, Philadelphia Displays 300 Years of American Art in Two Remarkable Venues

Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo by R.C. Staab

For art lovers, there is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to see 300 years of American art in one city for an entire year. Just in time for the nation’s 250th birthday, the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) are teaming up for “A Nation of Artists,” a blockbuster, two-museum exhibition powered by the private Middleton Family Collection.

“A Nation of Artists” displays more than 1,000 paintings, photographs, sculptures and decorative objects to show how American artists wrestled with ideas of liberty, identity, innovation and power from 1700 to today.  You move from Revolutionary portraits, 18th century period rooms and rare battle flags to Hudson River panoramas, Civil War–era ceramics to the, Ash Can School of realism, and American Impressionism to 20th-century abstract art. Along the way you’ll meet Charles Willson Peale, Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer, Albert Bierstadt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Horace Pippin, Edward Hopper, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and a Native artists working in clay, fiber, metal and beadwork to create pottery, quilts, even wooden horses in carousels.

American Art galleries, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo by R.C. Staab

Newly Renovated American Art Galleries Across Two Floors

At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, “A Nation of Artists” doubles as the big reveal of the museum’s newly renovated American art galleries, which now tell the story straight through from 1700 to 1960.  The first-floor early American rooms open with Peale’s full-length portrait of George Washington from 1779, then plunge you into a world of carved Queen Anne chairs, twist-leg tables, a fiery Stamp Act teapot and the only surviving battle flags from the Revolutionary War. 

"The Agnew Clinic" by Thomas Eakins, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo by R.C. Staab

Upstairs on the main floor of the museum, a sweeping run of galleries tracks the years between 1840 and 1960—landscapes of the West by Bierstadt and Thomas Moran, the finest survey of Eakins including The Agnew Clinic, Impressionist gems by Cassatt and John Singer Sargent, works by Native artists, and mid 20th-century work by de Kooning, Pollock, and Rothko.

Interior, newly restored Furness Building at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Photo by R.C. Staab

Philly's Landmark Furness Building Re-opened

Over at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the show is the headliner for the reopening of the Frank Furness–designed Historic Landmark Building, freshly restored and finally back to its full, idiosyncratic glory. Over at PAFA, the show is the headliner for the reopening of the Frank Furness–designed Historic Landmark Building, freshly restored and finally back to its full, idiosyncratic glory. Inside Furness’s mash-up of Gothic, Romanesque, and Islamic flourishes, PAFA has completely re-hung its permanent collection and worked closely with the Philadephia Museum of Art to avoid duplication.

Gallery 2 at PAFA. Photo by R.C. Staab

Don't expect a chronological trip through American art. Rather, PAFA has completely re-hung its permanent collection and framed “A Nation of Artists” as a series of themes – internationalism and global exchange, prosperity and inequity,  industry and the modern imagination, landscapes and westward expansion. It can be striking or almost disconcerting to walk into a room and see a painting by Robert Henri from 1904 near a Joan Brown self-portrait from 1972. Even more startling is Eakins's masterpiece, The Gross Clinic, next to Cecilia Beaux's mother and daughter and Jonathan Lyndon Chase's portrait of a man and a boy wearing a Phillies cap from 1989.

John and Leigh Middleton with PAFA Board and Staff cutting ribbon to "reopen" the Furness Building.

Star of the Show: Highlights from The Middleton Family Collection

Running through both museums is the Middleton Family Collection, the nation’s most important private American art collection, now being shown for the first time. Assembled over nearly 50 years by Leigh and John S. Middleton, the collection stretches from 18th-century furniture and early portraiture through American Impressionism, Hudson River School landscapes, modernism, Pop and contemporary work. While John Middleton may best be known as the managing partner of the Philadelphia Phillies Major League Baseball team, one wonders if, in the long run, the art collection assembled by his wife for the family will outshine any triumph on the baseball diamond.

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Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

Discounts Available for Combined Admission

“A Nation of Artists” runs through July 5, 2027 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and through September 5, 2027 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.  When the works of the Middleton Family Collection are returned to their owners in a year or more, the museums will add works from their own collection.

Each institution requires its own ticket, but if you buy full-price general admission at one, you get 50% off a full-price adult ticket at the partner museum within seven days; the deal is good through August 31, 2026. There is no timed admission for either exhibit. Both museums are open Thursdays through Mondays.

• At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, admission is $30 for adults, $28 for seniors and $14 for students. More information at philamuseum.org

• At the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, admission is $25 for adults, $23 for seniors and $10 for students. More information at www.pafa.org