“In Philadelphia, John Middleton is known as the baseball guy with some very baseball ambitions. The managing partner of the Phillies has boldly declared his intention to make the team one of the winningest ever.

In another realm, though, Middleton has already achieved a distinction — as one of the world’s top art collectors.

Middleton and his wife, Leigh, have amassed ‘one of the greatest collections of American art in private hands,’ said the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Kathleen A. Foster. ‘It’s a set of masterpieces.’

Those masterpieces have been a closely held asset. ‘The details surrounding Middleton’s collecting interests are shadowy,’ wrote ARTnews in its Top 200 list of international art collectors. Works have been quietly loaned here and there, but the family’s art has never been put on public display in a big way.

Now the couple is stepping out of the shadows.

Their collection guest stars in a major, unprecedented exhibition opening in Philadelphia in 2026. About 120 paintings and pieces of furniture and decorative arts from the Middleton Family Collection will be split between the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and surrounded by at least a thousand other objects from both museums in a blockbuster double show.”
 

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Read the full article "John Middleton’s secret art collection is coming out of the shadows in a blockbuster two-museum show" online at inquirer.com by By Peter Dobrin (Philadelphia Inquirer, June 17, 2025).

Editor’s note: The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is now the Philadelphia Art Museum (PhAM).

Featured Image from the article: John Middleton at the Philadelphia Museum of Art standing next to a work on loan from the Middleton Family Collection: Thomas Cole's "Schroon Lake," 1840. Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer