"Key to the institutional retooling are repairs to one of the crown jewels in the relatively small inventory of surviving Frank Furness-designed structures — PAFA’s historic landmark building just north of City Hall. The Academy has about $5.5 million in hand for a $10 million project to replace the…

Lately, museums have been exploring our complicated, often rapacious relationship with the natural world. DC’s National Portrait Gallery is currently showing Forces of Nature: Voices that Shaped Environmentalism, and last year the Brandywine Museum of Art mounted an exhibition titled Fragile Earth…

River Towns Magazine | Spring 2024
"Birthplace of the American Art Museum" By Patti Zielinski

"The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in Philadelphia, holds a dual distinction as America’s first art school and first museum of fine arts. Inside the museum, visitors will find a world-class…

"You might not know much about John Rhoden’s Nesaika, but you have walked past it every time you have passed Seventh and Arch Streets. The 9-footbronze sculpture, which stands outside the African American Museum in Philadelphia, was dedicated on June 10, 1976, by Mayor Frank L. Rizzo.

Eight days…

Némesis Mora attended the John Rhoden Catalogue Launch and Symposium and wrote an article for ¡Presente! Media:

"In a remodeled four-story building at 23 Cranberry Street in Brooklyn, New York, 20th-century African-American sculptor John Rhoden lived with his wife, Richanda Rhoden, from the 1960s…

“I can’t overstate the importance of the archives, you really need to have a bit of an understanding and appreciation for his life, to fully understand his work,” says Dr. Brittany Webb, curator of the collection.

"Along with the Evelyn and Will Kaplan Curator of Twentieth Century Art and the John…

In Determined to Be: The Sculpture of John Rhoden, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts presents the first comprehensive retrospective of the sculptor and international envoy, who absorbed cultures and networked with artists from Zanzibar to Uzbekistan.

Read the full article "A World at His…

The first retrospective for John Rhoden at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts sheds light on the history and meaning behind his public art in Philadelphia. 

In the latter half of the 20th century, the renowned Black American sculptor completed several commissions in and around the region. 

One…

From Oct. 5 through April 7, his work will be on display in “Determined to Be: The Sculpture of John Rhoden” at PAFA. Through about 70 of his works in bronze, stone, and wood, as well as archival materials, the exhibit will seek to tell the story of an artist some people say is unsung, yet ahead of…

"It’s just a few blocks on Arch Street between the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the oldest art school and museum in the United States, and the African American Museum in Philadelphia, founded in 1976 to celebrate the achievements of African Americans from pre-colonial times to the current…

On the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer today, Peter Dobrin writes 'Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts closes historic building to reimagine permanent collection.'

A review of the major exhibition, including each of the five subject areas: portraits, history, still life, genre and landscape