Friday, May 10, 2024, in the Historic Landmark Building

• 11AM:  MFA + Post Bacc Ceremony

• 2PM:   BFA + Certificate Ceremony

For the Rotunda Ceremony in the Historic Landmark Building, MFA & Post-Bacc. students may invite up to 5 guests, and BFA & Certificate students may invite up to 4 guests. Overflow seating for additional friends and family will be available in the Hamilton Building Rhoden Arts Center where the ceremony will be live-streamed.  The ceremony will be recorded and uploaded to this site within a week of Graduation.

We look forward to celebrating all our graduates this May- congratulations! 

Watch the 2024 BFA + Certificate Commencement Ceremony

https://youtube.com/live/Gz32P63wBPU

Graduate and Post-Bacc. Convocation, May 2024

https://youtube.com/live/su5D47y5yOY 

2024 Alumni Awards

Congratulations to this year's Alumni Service Award recipient, Fred Danziger. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Fred Danziger studied at PAFA, where he received the Cresson and Scheidt Awards. His career has included over 20 solo shows in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, as well as numerous group shows in New York City at Sherry French and K.R. Perlow Galleries. Fred’s work is in 12 American museums' permanent collections, including PAFA's! As an educator, Fred was PAFA faculty teaching portrait and still life classes and also taught at the Art Institute of Philadelphia.

Congratulations to this year's Distinguished Alumni Award, recipient Aubrey Levinthal. Aubrey received an MFA from PAFA and a BA from The Pennsylvania State University. Recent solo exhibitions include Tourist, Some Day, Neighbors, Strangers, Gazers, Bathers, and House Weary. Recent exhibitions include A Place for Me, Close, and Shelf Life. Aubrey lives and works in Philadelphia.

2024 Commencement Speaker

Thank you, Clarity Haynes, for your incredible words of wisdom and inspiration during our commencement ceremony this year. Your message resonated deeply with the graduates, and we're grateful for your contribution in making it a truly special day for them and their guests.

Clarity is known for her long-standing explorations of the torso as a cite for painted portraiture. Works in her Breast/Chest Portrait Project, always painted from life and usualy monumental in scale, have focused on themes of healing, trauma, and self-determination. Feminist and queer craft practices are often honored in her work. Bright colors, lively compositions, and multiple narratives conjoin in the depictions of bodies, altars, and her most recent body of work, which centers on the subject of birth. Haynes received the Distinguished Alumni Award from PAFA in 2020 and holds an MFA in painting from Brooklyn College, CUNY, BA from Temple University, and a Certificate of Fine Arts from PAFA.