PAFA receives $100,000 grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, supporting first-ever museum retrospective of American painter Joan Semmel

PHILADELPHIA (January 17, 2020) -- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is pleased to announce that it is the recipient of a $100,000 grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. This grant will support PAFA's upcoming retrospective exhibition of work by the pioneering American painter Joan Semmel. This is PAFA's second $100,000 grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the first supported its 2018 exhibition of the American artist Rina Banerjee.

The forthcoming exhibition of Joan Semmel (b. 1932) will be the artist's first-ever in-depth museum retrospective and will feature works created throughout her career, from early abstract-expressionist paintings through her feminist art and activism, and finally, to the vital work, she continues to create today. Opening at PAFA in early 2021, it is curated by Jodi Throckmorton, PAFA's Curator of Contemporary Art. Two artworks by Semmel are included in PAFA's permanent collection, and Semmel delivered PAFA's commencement address in 2017.

"Joan Semmel is an artistic trailblazer in every sense, and it is uniquely thrilling that The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts—an organization that has supported so many important and revolutionary artists and exhibitions—has recognized this project at PAFA," said Throckmorton. "Semmel has shattered conventions and expectations, and her work continues to push the medium of painting forward."

Brooke Davis Anderson, the Edna S. Tuttleman Director of the Museum, said, "This generous grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is an exciting affirmation of the important work that Jodi and our entire museum team are engaged in on a daily basis. PAFA has always been a boldly contemporary institution, and there are few artists who embody that contemporary spirit more than Joan Semmel. We are profoundly grateful to the foundation for its support of this project."

About The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

In accordance with Andy Warhol's will, the mission of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is the advancement of the visual arts. The foundation manages an innovative and flexible grants program while also preserving Warhol's legacy through creative and responsible licensing policies and extensive scholarly research for ongoing catalogue raisonné projects. To date, the foundation has given over $200 million in cash grants to over 1,000 arts organizations in 49 states and abroad and has donated 52,786 works of art to 322 institutions worldwide. More information is available at www.warholfoundation.org.