| Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 18 N. Broad Street |
 Cecilia Beaux, A Little Girl (Fanny Travis Cochran), oil on canvas, 1887
|
Cecilia Beaux: American Figure Painter
February 2 - April 13, 2007
Spot Check: Academy Contemporary
March 1 - June 8, 2008
|
| Contact Info |
18 N. Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103 |
| 215-972-7600 |
| www.pafa.org |
| Museum
hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10 am - 5 pm; Sunday, 11 am -
5 pm |
| Admission: $7 general;
$6 students and seniors; $5 for ages 5 - 18; members and children
under 5 free |
Cecilia Beaux: American Figure Painter is the first critical examination of the beloved Academy alumna and features nearly 85 oil paintings, works on paper, and decorative objects that examine the artist’s place in American art history.
Born in Philadelphia in 1855, Beaux was a trailblazing woman artist who achieved international acclaim and painted many of the leading political, literary, and business figures of her day. An independent career woman, she typified the New Woman that was characterized in contemporary literature by Henry James and Edith Wharton. She studied at the Pennsylania Academy and became its first female faculty member, the first woman to win many of the prestigious art prizes at museums around the country, and the first American woman to be invited to add her likeness to the Hall of Portraits at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Since 2004 the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts has set aside a portion of its acquisition funds to purchase work by emerging artists. This Morris Gallery focus installation spotlights over a dozen objects that have entered the Academy’s collection through the Contemporary Art Development Fund. Spot Check: Academy Contemporary will showcase art that engages in a wide range of current practices. It features work by Astrid Bowlby, Joy Feasley, Jane Irish, Tristan Lowe, Rob Matthews, Eamon Ore-Giron, Ben Peterson, Isaac Resnikoff, Huston Ripley, Jane South, Monique van Genderen and others. From an elaborate low-tech wall construction to a meticulously rendered California futurescape, an anthropomorphic architectural creature to startling ruminations on sexual, religious, and racial identity, this installation promises an exciting look at an important subset of the Academy's contemporary collection. |
| |
| About the Museum |
| Founded in 1805, the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts is America’s oldest art museum and
school of fine arts. The Academy collects and exhibits the work
of distinguished American artists and is renowned for its reputation
in training artists from the United States and, increasingly, from
around the world. PAFA offers a Certificate program, a Master of
Fine Arts degree program, a coordinated Baccalaureate of Fine Arts
degree program in conjunction with the University of Pennsylvania,
and a Post-Baccalaureate program in painting, printmaking, and sculpture.
Notable alumni include Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux,
Henry Tanner, Maxfield Parrish, Robert Henri, John Sloan, Charles
Sheeler, William Glackens, John Marin, Robert Gwathmey, David Lynch,
Bo Bartlett, and Vincent Desiderio. |
|
