1.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
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The Philadelphia Museum of Art 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 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 attendance figure for the museum was 751,797 in 2015, the museum is also one of the largest art museums in the world based on gallery space. The museum also administers the historic houses of Mount Pleasant and Cedar Grove. The museum and its annexes are owned by the City of Philadelphia, as of 2017, the standard adult admission price is $20 which allows entrance to the main building and all annexes for two consecutive days. The museum is closed on Mondays except on some holidays, several special exhibitions are held in the museum every year, including touring exhibitions arranged with other museums in the United States and abroad. Special exhibitions may have a charge for entrance. Philadelphia celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with the 1876 Centennial Exposition and its art building, Memorial Hall, was intended to outlast the Exhibition and house a permanent museum. The Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art opened on May 10,1877 and its permanent collection began with objects from the Exhibition and gifts from the public impressed with the Exhibitions ideals of good design and craftsmanship. European and Japanese fine and decorative art objects and books for the Museums library were among the first donations, the location outside of Center City, however, was fairly distant from many of the citys inhabitants. Admission was charged until 1881, then was dropped until 1962, starting in 1882, Clara Jessup Moore donated a remarkable collection of antique furniture, enamels, carved ivory, jewelry, metalwork, glass, ceramics, books, textiles and paintings. The Countess de Brazzas lace collection was acquired in 1894 forming the nucleus of the lace collection, in 1893 Anna H. Wilstach bequeathed a large painting collection, including many American paintings, and an endowment of half a million dollars for additional purchases. Works by James Abbott McNeill Whistler and George Inness were purchased within a few years, in the early 1900s, the Museum started an education program for the general public, as well as a membership program. Fiske Kimball was the director during the rapid growth of the 1920s. After World War II the collections grew with gifts, such as the John D. McIlhenny, early modern art dominated the growth of the collections in the 1950s, with acquisitions of the Louise and Walter Arensberg and the A. E. Gallatin collections. The gift of Philadelphian Grace Kellys wedding dress is perhaps the best known gift of the 1950s, extensive renovation of the building lasted from the 1960s through 1976. Major acquisitions included the Carroll S. Tyson, Jr. and Samuel S. White III and Vera White collections,71 objects from designer Elsa Schiaparelli, in 1976 there were celebrations and special exhibitions for the centennial of the Museum and the bicentennial of the nation
2.
Philadelphia
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In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland
3.
Oil painting
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Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. Commonly used drying oils include linseed oil, poppy seed oil, walnut oil, the choice of oil imparts a range of properties to the oil paint, such as the amount of yellowing or drying time. Certain differences, depending on the oil, are visible in the sheen of the paints. An artist might use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular consistency depending on the medium, the oil may be boiled with a resin, such as pine resin or frankincense, to create a varnish prized for its body and gloss. Its practice may have migrated westward during the Middle Ages, Oil paint eventually became the principal medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became widely known. In recent years, water miscible oil paint has come to prominence and, to some extent, water-soluble paints contain an emulsifier that allows them to be thinned with water rather than paint thinner, and allows very fast drying times when compared with traditional oils. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with the artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint, Oil paint is usually mixed with linseed oil, artist grade mineral spirits, or other solvents to make the paint thinner, faster or slower-drying. A basic rule of oil paint application is fat over lean and this means that each additional layer of paint should contain more oil than the layer below to allow proper drying. If each additional layer contains less oil, the painting will crack. This rule does not ensure permanence, it is the quality and type of oil leads to a strong. There are many media that can be used with the oil, including cold wax, resins. These aspects of the paint are closely related to the capacity of oil paint. Traditionally, paint was transferred to the surface using paintbrushes. Oil paint remains wet longer than other types of artists materials, enabling the artist to change the color. At times, the painter might even remove a layer of paint. This can be done with a rag and some turpentine for a time while the paint is wet, Oil paint dries by oxidation, not evaporation, and is usually dry to the touch within a span of two weeks. It is generally dry enough to be varnished in six months to a year, art conservators do not consider an oil painting completely dry until it is 60 to 80 years old
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Museum of Modern Art
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The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is identified as one of the largest and most influential museums of modern art in the world. The MoMA Library includes approximately 300,000 books and exhibition catalogs, over 1,000 periodical titles, the archives holds primary source material related to the history of modern and contemporary art. The idea for The Museum of Modern Art was developed in 1929 primarily by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and they became known variously as the Ladies, the daring ladies and the adamantine ladies. They rented modest quarters for the new museum in the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and it opened to the public on November 7,1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash. Abby had invited A. Conger Goodyear, the president of the board of trustees of the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. At the time, it was Americas premier museum devoted exclusively to art. One of Abbys early recruits for the staff was the noted Japanese-American photographer Soichi Sunami. Goodyear enlisted Paul J. Sachs and Frank Crowninshield to join him as founding trustees, Sachs, the associate director and curator of prints and drawings at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, was referred to in those days as a collector of curators. Goodyear asked him to recommend a director and Sachs suggested Alfred H. Barr, under Barrs guidance, the museums holdings quickly expanded from an initial gift of eight prints and one drawing. Its first successful exhibition was in November 1929, displaying paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne. Abbys husband was opposed to the museum and refused to release funds for the venture. Nevertheless, he donated the land for the current site of the museum, plus other gifts over time. During that time it initiated many more exhibitions of noted artists, the museum also gained international prominence with the hugely successful and now famous Picasso retrospective of 1939–40, held in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago. In its range of presented works, it represented a significant reinterpretation of Picasso for future art scholars, Boy Leading a Horse was briefly contested over ownership with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In 1941, MoMA hosted the exhibition, Indian Art of the United States. His brother, David Rockefeller, also joined the board of trustees in 1948. David subsequently employed the noted architect Philip Johnson to redesign the garden and name it in honor of his mother
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National Gallery
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The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the century to 1900. The Gallery is a charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media. Its collection belongs to the public of the United Kingdom and entry to the collection is free of charge. It is among the most visited art museums in the world, after the Musée du Louvre, the British Museum, unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein, after that initial purchase the Gallery was shaped mainly by its early directors, notably Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, and by private donations, which comprise two-thirds of the collection. It used to be claimed that this was one of the few national galleries that had all its works on permanent exhibition, the present building, the third to house the National Gallery, was designed by William Wilkins from 1832 to 1838. Only the façade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time, wilkinss building was often criticised for the perceived weaknesses of its design and for its lack of space, the latter problem led to the establishment of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897. The Sainsbury Wing, an extension to the west by Robert Venturi, the current Director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi. The late 18th century saw the nationalisation of royal or princely art collections across mainland Europe, great Britain, however, did not emulate the continental model, and the British Royal Collection remains in the sovereigns possession today. In 1777 the British government had the opportunity to buy an art collection of international stature, the MP John Wilkes argued for the government to buy this invaluable treasure and suggested that it be housed in a noble gallery. The twenty-five paintings from that now in the Gallery, including NG1, have arrived by a variety of routes. This offer was declined and Bourgeois bequeathed the collection to his old school, Dulwich College, the collection opened in Britains first purpose-built public gallery, the Dulwich Picture Gallery, in 1814. The British Institution, founded in 1805 by a group of aristocratic connoisseurs, the members lent works to exhibitions that changed annually, while an art school was held in the summer months. However, as the paintings that were lent were often mediocre, some resented the Institution. One of the Institutions founding members, Sir George Beaumont, Bt, in 1823 another major art collection came on the market, which had been assembled by the recently deceased John Julius Angerstein. Angerstein was a Russian-born émigré banker based in London, his collection numbered 38 paintings, including works by Raphael, on 1 July 1823 George Agar Ellis, a Whig politician, proposed to the House of Commons that it purchase the collection. The appeal was given added impetus by Beaumonts offer, which came with two conditions, that the government buy Angersteins collection, and that a building was to be found
6.
Barnes Foundation
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The Barnes Foundation is an American educational art and horticultural institution with locations in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, and Logan Square, Philadelphia. It was founded in 1922 by Albert C, today, the foundation owns more than 4,000 objects, including over 900 paintings, estimated to be worth about $25 billion. In the 1990s, the declining finances led its leaders to various controversial moves, including sending artworks on world tours. A2009 documentary, The Art of the Steal, argued that the foundation had been taken over by other non-profit institutions, after numerous court challenges, the new Barnes building opened on Benjamin Franklin Parkway on May 19,2012. The foundations current president and executive director, Thomas “Thom” Collins, was appointed on January 7,2015, from 1912, Barnes, who derived his fortune from his development of the antiseptic drug Argyrol and a business to sell it, began to study and collect art. He was assisted at first by the painter William Glackens, a schoolmate, in 1912 in Paris, Barnes visited the home of Gertrude and Leo Stein, where he became familiar with the work of such Modernist artists as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Commissioned by Barnes, Glackens selected the first 20 works he purchased from modern painters in Paris, in the 1920s, Barnes became acquainted with the work of Amedeo Modigliani and Giorgio de Chirico, thanks to the dealer Paul Guillaume. In 1922, Barnes began to transform his collection into a cultural institution and he chartered the Barnes Foundation as an educational institution in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He selected the location on land in Merion that he bought from the American Civil War veteran and horticulturist Captain Joseph Lapsley Wilson and he commissioned architect Paul Cret to design a complex of buildings. Soon afterward, a dispute was filed in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The main building features several unusual cubist bas-reliefs, commissioned by Barnes from the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, Barnes built his home next to the gallery, and it now serves as the administration building of the foundation. His wife, Laura, developed the Arboretum of the Barnes Foundation, Barness conception of his foundation as a school rather than a typical museum was shaped through his collaboration with the philosopher John Dewey, who helped draw up its mandate. To help with the educational programs, Barnes hired Thomas Munro, one of Deweys students at Columbia University, and Lawrence Buermeyer. Buermeyer and Munro each served as Associate Director of Education for several years and she accompanied him on buying trips from the 1920s through the 1940s. She continued to express his philosophy after his death, Barnes created detailed terms of operation in an indenture of trust to be honored in perpetuity after his death. Matisse is said to have hailed the school as the only place in America to view art. Artist Harriet Zeitlin is among those who studied at the Foundation, in 1941 and 1942, Bertrand Russell gave a series of lectures on the history of philosophy at the gallery, these would later become his landmark A History of Western Philosophy. After a decade of legal challenges, the public was allowed access to the collection in 1961
7.
Art Institute of Chicago
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The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879 and located in Chicagos Grant Park, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. Recognized for its efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 million guests annually. The growth of the collection has warranted several additions to the museums original 1893 building, the Art Institute is connected to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a leading art school, making it one of the few remaining unified arts institutions in the United States. In 1866, a group of 35 artists founded the Chicago Academy of Design in a studio on Dearborn Street, the organization was modeled after European art academies, such as the Royal Academy, with Academicians and Associate Academicians. The Academys charter was granted in March 1867, classes started in 1868, meeting every day at a cost of $10 per month. The Academys success enabled it to build a new home for the school, a stone building on 66 West Adams Street. When the Great Chicago Fire destroyed the building in 1871 the Academy was thrown into debt, attempts to continue despite the loss by using rented facilities failed. By 1878 the Academy was $10,000 in debt, members tried to rescue the ailing institution by making deals with local businessmen, before some finally abandoned it in 1879 to found a new organization, named the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. When the Chicago Academy of Design went bankrupt the same year, in 1882, the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts changed its name to the current Art Institute of Chicago and elected as its first president the banker and philanthropist Charles L. Also in 1882, the purchased a lot on the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue. By January 1885 the trustees recognized the need to provide space for the organizations growing collection. The city agreed, and the building was completed in time for the year of the fair. Construction costs were met by selling the Michigan/Van Buren property, on October 31,1893 the Institute moved into the new building. For the opening reception on December 8,1893, Theodore Thomas, from the 1900s to the 1960s the school offered with the Logan Family the Logan Medal of the Arts, an award which became one of the most distinguished awards presented to artists in the US. Between 1959 and 1970 the Institute was a key site in the battle to gain art and documentary photography a place in galleries, under curator Hugh Edwards and his assistants. As Director of the museum starting in the early 1980s, James N. Wood conducted an expansion of its collection. He retired from the museum in 2004, in 2006, the Art Institute began construction of The Modern Wing, an addition situated on the southwest corner of Columbus and Monroe. The project, designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Renzo Piano, was completed, the 264, 000-square-foot building makes the Art Institute the second-largest art museum in the United States
8.
Joseph E. Widener
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Joseph Early Widener was a wealthy American art collector who was a founding benefactor of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. A major figure in Thoroughbred horse racing, he was head of New Yorks Belmont Park and builder of Miami, Widener was born in Philadelphia, the second son of the extremely wealthy transportation and real estate magnate Peter A. B. Joseph Widener attended Harvard University, and for a time studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Joseph Widener used his wealth to pursue his interest in Thoroughbred horse racing on a large scale. In 1901, thirty-year-old Joseph Widener began purchasing Thoroughbred horses to compete in flat racing and steeplechase events. Racing Hall of Fame horse trainer, J. Howard Lewis, for the next four decades they combined to race fourteen Champions, two in flat racing and twelve Steeplechase Champions. Wideners steeplechase horses won important races including three editions of the American Grand National with Relluf, Arc Light, and Bushranger. His steeplechasers Bushranger and Fairmount were both elected to the U. S, following the death of August Belmont, Jr. Joseph Widener and friends W. Averell Harriman and George Herbert Walker, purchased much of Belmonts Thoroughbred breeding stock. For his Elmendorf Farm breeding operation, Widener acquired Belmonts very important sire Fair Play and the broodmare Mahubah, the parents of Man o War. He also purchased a son of Fair Play named Chance Shot who would go on to win the 1927 Belmont Stakes, Widener had a life-size statue of Fair Play erected by his grave at Elmendorf Farm. As part of the selloff of the August Belmont, Jr, in 1930, he imported the stallion Sickle from Lord Derby in England who came to visit the U. S. that year and was Wideners guest at the 1930 Kentucky Derby. A son of the important sire Phalaris, Sickle would produce 45 Graded stakes race winners. Following Chance Shots win in the 1927 Belmont Stakes, Wideners racing stable won the two more times with Hurryoff in 1933 and with a son of Chance Shot in 1934 named Peace Chance. He also had five horses compete in the Kentucky Derby with his best finishes a second place earned by Osmand in 1927, Joseph Wideners father had had business interests in France and like other wealthy elite Americans of that era, maintained a place in fashionable Paris. In addition to racing horses in the United States, Widener also kept a stable of Thoroughbreds in France. Competing in French grass racing, his horses won the 1923 and 1926 editions of the Prix La Rochette and the 1923,1924, Widener also owned English Hackney horses who competed at various shows. He married Ella Pancoast with whom he had two children, Peter A. B, designed by Horace Trumbauer and Jacques Greber, the mansion, along with its extensive and important art collection, was part of the huge fortune he inherited. In poor health for years, Joseph Early Widener died at his Lynnewood Hall estate in 1943 and was interred in the West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia
