Layers of Liberty: Philadelphia and the Appalachian Environment

With paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture from PAFA’s permanent collection, the exhibition traces Philadelphia’s relationship to Appalachian extraction of natural resources from a historical to contemporary perspective.

The Appalachian region is vast, encompassing 13 states, with nearly 70% of the state of Pennsylvania representing the Appalachian territory. Motivated by both a lack of representation of Appalachian art in museum collections and recent trends in ecocritical scholarship, Layers of Liberty: Philadelphia and the Appalachian Environment examines themes that relate directly to Philadelphia and rural Appalachian Pennsylvania, referencing the ecology of early America, the establishment of networks of transportation like the railroad and the commodification of natural resources, and the pastoral relationship to the environment that inspired Philadelphia (and PAFA) artists. 

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Featured Image: Hubert Davis, Spring in the Coal Regions, 1944, oil on canvas, 26” x 36”, 1945.2.