Philadelphia Museum of Art
Established	1876
Location	Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia
Director	TBD
Website	www.philamuseum.org

The Philadelphia Museum of Art, located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year and is now among the largest art museums in the United States. Benjamin Franklin Parkway is a scenic avenue that runs through the cultural heart of the U Philadelphia (ˌfɪləˈdɛlfiə Benjamin Franklin Parkway is a scenic avenue that runs through the cultural heart of the U Philadelphia (ˌfɪləˈdɛlfiə Fairmount Park is the municipal park system of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876 the first official World's Fair in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Originally the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, its founding was inspired by the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) in London, which grew out of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design housing a permanent collection London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. The Great Exhibition, also known as Crystal Palace, was an international exhibition that was held in Hyde Park, London, England, from 1 It is known locally and colloquially as "The Art Museum. " The museum opened its doors to the public on May 10, 1877, originally housed in Memorial Hall. Events 1291 - Scottish Nobles recognize the authority of Edward I of England. Year 1877 ( MDCCCLXXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Designed by Hermann J Schwarzmann for the Centennial Exposition, Memorial Hall is made of brick glass iron and granite While the location was adequate, it was isolated from the bulk of the city. ^[1]

Construction of the current building began in 1919 when Mayor Thomas B. Smith laid the cornerstone in a Masonic ceremony on the former reservoir land of the decommissioned Fairmount Water Works covering ten acres of ground. The Fairmount Water Works in Philadelphia Pennsylvania was the first Municipal Waterworks in the United States The Fairmount Water Works in Philadelphia Pennsylvania was the first Municipal Waterworks in the United States ^[2] The first section was completed in the spring of 1928. The quasi-Greek Revival design was produced by Horace Trumbauer and the firm of Zantzinger, Borie and Medary. The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries predominantly in northern Europe and the United States Horace Trumbauer ( December 28, 1868 &ndash November 18, 1938) was a prominent American Architect of the Gilded Age Zantzinger Borie and Medary was an American architectural firm active from 1910 through 1929 specializing in institutional and civic projects ^[1] The façade of the building is of Minnesota dolomite. A facade or façade (fəˈsɑːd is generally one side of the exterior of a Building, especially the front but also sometimes the sides and rear Dolomite (ˈdɒləmaɪt is the name of a Sedimentary Carbonate rock and a Mineral, both composed The pediment facing the parkway is adorned with sculptures by C. Paul Jennewein depicting Greek gods and goddesses. A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure ( Entablature) typically supported by Carl Paul Jennewein ( December 2, 1890 &ndash February 23, 1978) was a German -born American sculptor. There is also a collection of griffins, which were adopted as the symbol of the museum in the 1970s. ^[1]

For the better part of a century the McIlhenny family held an important relationship with the museum. Henry P. McIlhenny was involved for almost half a century, first as curator from 1939 to 1964, then as chairman of the board in 1976 until his death in 1986, when he left the bulk of his estate to the museum. Henry Plumer McIlhenny ( October 7, 1910 &ndash May 11, 1986) was an American connoisseur of art and antiques world traveler socialite philanthropist

The institution describes itself as "one of the largest museums in the United States"^[3], and its collections include more than 225,000 objects,^[4] although the institution has no galleries devoted to Greek, Roman or Egyptian art.

Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company Building
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location:	Fairmount and Pennsylvania Aves. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP is the United States government's official list of districts sites buildings structures and objects deemed worthy of , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Coordinates:	39°58′2.82″N 75°10′47.05″W / 39.96745, -75.1797361Coordinates: 39°58′2.82″N 75°10′47.05″W / 39.96745, -75.1797361
Built/Founded:	1926
Architect:	Zantzinger & Borie; Lawrie,Lee
Architectural style(s):	No Style Listed
Added to NRHP:	July 02, 1973
NRHP Reference#:	73001662 [5]
Governing body:	Private

Collections

Surreal entrance display for the 2005 Salvador Dalí exhibition, including the steps of the museum

Each year the Museum puts on 15 to 20 special exhibitions and is visited by 800,000 people. Philadelphia (ˌfɪləˈdɛlfiə A geographic coordinate system enables every location on the Earth to be specified in three coordinates using mainly a spherical coordinate system. The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP is the United States government's official list of districts sites buildings structures and objects deemed worthy of Events 310 - Pope Miltiades is elected 626 - In fear of assassination Li Shimin ambushes and kills his rival Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech 1st Marquis of Púbol (May 11 1904 &ndash January 23 1989 was a Spanish Catalan Surrealist Some of the larger and most famous special exhibitions, which have attracted hundreds of thousands of people from every state and around the world, include shows featuring Paul Cézanne (in 1996, attracting 548,000) and Salvador Dalí (in 2005, attracting 370,000). Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech 1st Marquis of Púbol (May 11 1904 &ndash January 23 1989 was a Spanish Catalan Surrealist

Widely regarded as a world-class art institution, the Philadelphia Museum of Art includes not only its iconic Main Building, but also the Rodin Museum (also on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway) and several other historic sites. The Rodin Museum is a museum located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which contains the largest collection of sculptor Auguste Rodin 's works outside The recently acquired Perelman Building (across the street from the Main Building) opened in 2007 and houses for public display a few of the Museum's more popular collections.

In the 18th century, Philadelphia was one of the most important cities in North America and was a center of style and culture. ^[6] The museum is particularly known for its important collections of Pennsylvania German art, 18th- and 19th-century furniture and silver by early Philadelphia and Pennsylvania craftsmen, and works by prominent Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins. The Pennsylvania Dutch (perhaps more strictly Pennsylvania Deitsch, Pennsylvania Germans or Pennsylvania Deutsch) are the descendants of German The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ( often colloquially referred to as PA (its abbreviation by natives and Northeasterners is a state located in the Northeastern Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins ( July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was a realist painter, Photographer, sculptor The museum houses the most important Eakins collection in the world.

Overview of the collections

One of the nation's great artistic and historic resources, the museum houses more than 225,000 objects spanning the creative achievements of the Western world since the first century A. D. and those of Asia since the third millennium B. C. ^[4]

Highlights of the Asian collections include paintings and sculpture from China, Japan, and India; furniture and decorative arts, including major collections of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean ceramics; a large and distinguished group of Persian and Turkish carpets; and rare and authentic architectural assemblages such as a Japanese teahouse, a Chinese palace hall, and a sixteenth-century Indian temple hall. ^[4]

The European collections, dating from the medieval era to the present, encompass Italian and Flemish early-Renaissance masterworks; strong representations of later European paintings, including French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism; sculpture, with a special concentration in the works of Auguste Rodin; decorative arts; tapestries; furniture; the second largest collection of arms and armor in the United States; and period rooms and architectural settings ranging from the façade of a medieval church in Burgundy to a superbly decorated English drawing room by Robert Adam. Impressionism was a 19th-century Art movement that began as a loose association of Paris -based Artists exhibiting their art publicly in the 1860s Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and Art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Auguste Rodin (born François-Auguste-René Rodin; November 12 1840–November 17 1917 was a French artist most famous as a sculptor. Robert Adam ( 3 July 1728 &ndash 3 March 1792) was a Scottish neoclassical Architect, Interior designer ^[4]

The museum's American collections, surveying three centuries of painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, are among the finest in the United States, with outstanding strengths in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Philadelphia furniture and silver, rural Pennsylvania furniture and ceramics, and the paintings of Thomas Eakins. Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins ( July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was a realist painter, Photographer, sculptor ^[4]

Holdings of modern art include extraordinary concentrations of work by such artists as Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Constantin Brancusi, as well as American modernists, making the museum one of the best in the world in which to see modern art. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 Marcel Duchamp (maʀsɛl dyˈʃɑ̃ (28 July 1887 &ndash 2 October 1968 was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist Constantin Brâncuşi, ( February 19, 1876 &ndash March 16, 1957) konstanˈtin brɨnˈkuʃʲ was an internationally renowned Romanian The expanding collection of contemporary art includes major works by Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns, and Sol LeWitt, among many others. Cy Twombly (born April 25 1928 is an American artist well known for his large scale freely-scribbled calligraphic style Graffiti paintings on solid fields of Jasper Johns Jr (born May 15, 1930 in Augusta Georgia) is a contemporary American artist who primarily works in painting and Printmaking Sol LeWitt ( September 9, 1928 - April 8, 2007) was ^[4]

In addition to these collections, the museum houses encyclopedic holdings of costume and textiles as well as prints, drawings, and photographs that are displayed in rotation for reasons of preservation. ^[4]

The Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch Collection

The museum also houses the comprehensive armor collection of Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch. Armour (or armor) is protective covering most commonly manufactured from metals to prevent damage from being inflicted to an individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact The Von Kienbusch collection was bequeathed by the celebrated collector to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1976, the Bicentennial Anniversary of the American Revolution. The Von Kienbusch holdings are comprehensive, and include European arms and armor spanning several centuries. ^[7]

A few years ago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art reached an agreement with German authorities for the return of five pieces of armor stolen from Dresden during World War II. Dresden (etymologically from Old Sorbian Drežďany, meaning people of the riverside forest, Drježdźany is the Capital city of the German In 1953, collector von Kienbusch purchased the armor unsuspectingly. It was donated to the Art Museum in 1976. Kienbusch published catalogs of his collection, which eventually led Dresden authorities to bring the matter up with the Art Museum. ^[8][9]

Notable holdings

Toulouse-Lautrec	Van Gogh	J. M. W. Turner	Peter Paul Rubens
El Greco	Édouard Manet	Thomas Eakins	Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp	Paul Cezanne	Salvador Dali	Édouard Manet

Gallery expansion

Due to overwhelming popularity and overflowing collections, it was announced in October 2006, that Frank Gehry will be designing an expansion to the museum. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (ɑ̃ʁi dø tuluz loˈtʁɛk (24 November 1864 &ndash 9 September 1901 was a French painter, printmaker, draftsman Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 &ndash 19 December 1851 was an English Romantic landscape painter, Watercolourist and El Greco' ("The Greek " 1541 &ndash April 7 1614 was a painter, sculptor, and architect of the Spanish Renaissance Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins ( July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was a realist painter, Photographer, sculptor Marcel Duchamp (maʀsɛl dyˈʃɑ̃ (28 July 1887 &ndash 2 October 1968 was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist Marcel Duchamp (maʀsɛl dyˈʃɑ̃ (28 July 1887 &ndash 2 October 1968 was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech 1st Marquis of Púbol (May 11 1904 &ndash January 23 1989 was a Spanish Catalan Surrealist Frank Owen Gehry CC (born Ephraim Owen Goldberg, February 28, 1929) is a Pritzker Prize -winning Architect The 80,000-square-foot (7,000 m²) gallery will be built entirely underground beneath the Rocky Steps and will not alter any of the museum's existing Greek revival facade. The Rocky Steps is the nickname given to the front steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Though the date for construction to begin has not been announced, the construction is projected to last a decade and cost $500 million. It will increase the museum's available display space by sixty percent and house mostly contemporary sculpture, Asian art, and special exhibitions. ^[10]

The outdoors of the museum is currently getting a "facelift. "^[11] While the museum itself is expanding across the street, some 200,000 books and periodicals and 1. 6 million other documents are moving from the Main Building to the art deco former headquarters of the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company across the street at Fairmount and Pennsylvania avenues^[12]. Art Deco was a popular international design movement from 1925 until 1939 affecting the decorative arts such as Architecture, Interior design, and Industrial It has been renamed the Perelman Building. ^[13]

The Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company Building was constructed in 1927 by Philadelphia-based architects Zantzinger, Borie and Medary and was adorned by sculptors Lee Lawrie and Samuel Yellin. Zantzinger Borie and Medary was an American architectural firm active from 1910 through 1929 specializing in institutional and civic projects Lee Oscar Lawrie ( October 16, 1877 - January 23, 1963) was one of the United States ' foremost architectural Sculptors Samuel Yellin (1885&ndash1940 American master blacksmith was born in Galicia Poland where at the age of eleven he was apprenticed to an iron master In 1982 it was restored and later acquired by the Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company. ^[14]

Relationship to Philadelphia

Statue of Rocky Balboa, with the museum in the background. Robert "Rocky" Balboa Sr (born July 6 1945 was a fictional boxer portrayed by Sylvester Stallone who has appeared in the ''Rocky'' series from

Besides its architecture and collections, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is well known for the role it played in a famous scene in the film Rocky, and also in four of its sequels, II, III, V and Rocky Balboa. Rocky is a 1976 Film written by and starring Sylvester Stallone and directed by John G Rocky II is the 1979 sequel to Rocky, a motion picture in which an unknown boxer had been given a chance to go the distance Rocky III ( 1982) is the third installment in the Rocky movie series. Rocky V is the fifth film in the Rocky film saga It was released on November 16, 1990. Visitors to the museum can frequently be seen mimicking Rocky's famous run up the front steps, now known locally as the Rocky Steps. The Rocky Steps is the nickname given to the front steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. ^[15]

A bronze statue of Rocky was briefly placed at the top of the steps for the filming of Rocky III. Rocky III ( 1982) is the third installment in the Rocky movie series. The statue was later moved to the Wachovia Spectrum due to a furious debate over the meaning of "art". The Wachovia Spectrum (formerly known as the Spectrum (1967–1994 CoreStates Spectrum (1994–1998 and First Union Spectrum (1998–2003 is an Art refers to a diverse range of Human activities creations and expressions that are appealing to the Senses or Emotions of a human individual The statue was returned to the steps for the filming of Rocky V, and also appears there in the movies Philadelphia and Mannequin, but has since been removed. Philadelphia is a 1993 Film revolving around HIV / AIDS, Homosexuality and prevailing attitudes concerning gays and homophobia Mannequin is a 1987 romantic comedy film starring Kim Cattrall, Andrew McCarthy, Meshach Taylor, James Spader, The statue was replaced with a simple set of footprints reading "Rocky. " The statue was returned to the foot of the steps on September 8, 2006. ^[16]

Live 8 At the Philadelphia Museum of Art. July 2, 2005

Because of its location at the end of the Ben Franklin Parkway, the museum is the backdrop for many concerts and parades. On July 2, 2005, the steps of the museum played host to the Philadelphia venue of Live 8, where artists such as Dave Matthews Band, Linkin Park and Maroon 5 performed. Events 310 - Pope Miltiades is elected 626 - In fear of assassination Li Shimin ambushes and kills his rival Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Live 8 was a string of Benefit concerts that took place on 2 July, 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. Dave Matthews Band (also known by the initials DMB) is a United States -based rock band originally formed in Charlottesville, Virginia Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California. Maroon 5 is a Grammy Award -winning American Pop rock band Formed with only two members at the French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts and expanded The museum closed for Live 8, but reopened at regular hours the following day. On 2 July, 2005, a Live 8 concert was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States in front of the Philadelphia Museum of

See also

• Eakins Oval

External links

• Philadelphia Museum of Art Web Site
• Listing at Philadelphia Architects and Buildings

References