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We won’t be the first people to tell you to run up the stairs leading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Rocky did it, you should too. I promise, you will carpe the hell out of your diem. But really, Sylvester Stallone aside, the museum itself is quite impressive. It houses over 240,000 artworks, documenting artistic efforts over two millennia.
The city of Philadelphia came up with the idea of building a museum in 1856. It was supposed to be part of the first-ever World’s Fair Exposition in 1876. The country was celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
In 1877, the museum opened their doors. Unfortunately, not many people wanted to drive out of the city to a remotely located art museum. The institution shared its quarters with the Art Institute, so the only people who came to visit were students. After three decades of relative obscurity, the city of Philadelphia came to the rescue. In 1907, a new building was commissioned for the collection. The guy who designed the building, Julian Abele, was the first African-American person to graduate from the architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania in 1902. As you can imagine, this was not an easy road, as he faced many instances of racial discrimination.
The city took two more decades to complete the building, which is currently situated at Fairmount Park.
Sources
Sources
- “Everything You Need to Know About Visiting Philadelphia Museum of Art.” U.S. News & World Report. U.S. News & World Report. Accessed November 30, 2019. https://travel.usnews.com/Philadelphia_PA/Things_To_Do/Philadelphia_Mus….
- “Explore the Iconic Philadelphia Museum of Art.” Visit Philadelphia. Accessed December 1, 2019. https://www.visitphilly.com/things-to-do/attractions/philadelphia-museu….
- Starner, Nina. “A Brief History of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.” Culture Trip. The Culture Trip, March 28, 2018. https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/pennsylvania/articles/a-br….
- “Historic Preservation.” Historic Preservation | Weitzman School, April 8, 2019. https://www.design.upenn.edu/historic-preservation/events/julian-abele-….
- “Philadelphia Museum of Art.” Philadelphia Museum of Art | The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Accessed December 1, 2019. https://tclf.org/landscapes/philadelphia-museum-art.
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Here is what Wikipedia says about Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at Eakins Oval. The museum administers collections containing over 240,000 objects including major holdings of European, American and Asian origin. The various classes of artwork include sculpture, paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, armor, and decorative arts.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art administers several annexes including the Rodin Museum, also located on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, which is located across the street just north of the main building. The Perelman Building, which opened in 2007, houses more than 150,000 prints, drawings and photographs, 30,000 costume and textile pieces, and over 1,000 modern and contemporary design objects including furniture, ceramics, and glasswork.
The museum also administers the historic colonial-era houses of Mount Pleasant and Cedar Grove, both located in Fairmount Park. The main museum building and its annexes are owned by the City of Philadelphia and administered by a registered nonprofit corporation.
Several special exhibitions are held in the museum every year, including touring exhibitions arranged with other museums in the United States and abroad. The museum had 437,348 visitors in 2021.
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