Paintings at the Academy

With a collection of nearly 1,800 paintings, PAFA owns some of the most important and recognizable works in American art, including:

Benjamin West's Penn's Treaty with the Indians (1771-72)
Gilbert Stuart's George Washington (The Lansdowne Portrait) (1796)
Charles Willson Peale's The Artist in His Museum (1822)
Winslow Homer's The Fox Hunt (1893)

Federal Period

The paintings collection is renowned for its holdings from the Federal period, including works by the Peale family, numerous portraits by Gilbert Stuart and Thomas Sully, and a fine collection of portrait miniatures.

Late 19th Century

Works from the late 19th century, when American artists began working in a more international style, constitute one of the high points of the Academy's collection. Paintings bv William Merritt Chase, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, John Twachtman, Theodore Robinson, Childe Hassam, Henry O. Tanner, Cecilia Beaux and Thomas Eakins are among the most significant examples.

20th Century

In the early 20th century, the Academy collected works by some of its famous alumni, including Robert Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, Everett Shinn and George Luks, all of whom were connected with the Ashcan School.

Twentieth century developments in abstraction are documented in the collection by artists such as Arthur B. Carles, Florine Stettheimer, Stuart Davis, Georgia O'Keeffe, Ben Shahn, Jack Levine, Mark Rothko, Jacob Lawrence and Richard Diebenkorn.

As a school synonymous with the figurative tradition, the Academy's collections also are rich in the works of 20th-century representational artists such as Edward Hopper, Guy Pène du Bois, Reginald Marsh, Isabel Bishop, Thomas Hart Benton, Alfred Leslie, Philip Pearlstein, Andrew Wyeth and Bo Bartlett.