Philadelphia Museums Launch 1,000-Work Exhibition for US 250th Anniversary

Philadelphia Museum of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts present A Nation of Artists, a two-venue exhibition featuring over 1,000 works for America's 250th anniversary. Opening April 12, 2027, the show runs through July 5 at PMA and September 5 at PAFA. Senior curator Kathleen A. Foster describes the exhibition as both celebratory and self-examining, aiming to challenge and reward all Americans. Charles Willson Peale's 1779 portrait of George Washington serves as centerpiece, while Barkley L. Hendricks's 1968 portrait J. S. B. III highlights contemporary perspectives. The exhibition showcases diverse American identities through Hudson River School landscapes, Indigenous works from Haida, Haudenosaunee, Diné, Hopi and Pueblo nations, and contemporary artist Laura Watters Maynor's Lenape-influenced pieces. Additional highlights include Andrew Wyeth's surrealism, Elizabeth Catlett's Mother and Child sculpture (circa 1956), and Georgia O'Keeffe's Red Hills and Bones (1941). John S. Middleton's family collection contributes 120 works, featuring Hudson River School paintings, US Impressionist pieces, and John Singer Sargent's Group With Parasols (A Siesta) (1904-05). Middleton, owner of the Philadelphia Phillies, compares art's unifying power to baseball's ability to bring people together unexpectedly. The exhibition replaces simple patriotism with deep questioning about American identity through artistic multiplicity.