From the Collection

In the 18th century, statues and plaster casts that represented classical Greek and Roman antiquity became central to the training of artists in European art academies. The refined standards of representation in these objects, solidified knowledge of proportion, anatomy, illusionistic form in space, value, achromatic temperature relationships and lighting. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, public institutions in the United States followed the European model and acquired casts from collections in Europe. Since ancient Greek and Roman sculptures were unavailable in the early years of America, cast copies were used as instructive devices in place of originals. In 1805, with the founding of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), several casts were commissioned and purchased from Paris, France. The casts formed part of the original Academy collection on view to the public along with paintings. In the early days at the Academy, students worked in the galleries from this original collection. After 1880 the casts were moved to the school studios in our current Historic Landmark Building. Cast Drawing became embedded in the Academy's curriculum and remains a core foundation course in PAFA’s curriculum today.

Currently PAFA's Historic Landmark Building is temporarily closed to students and the public due to necessary renovations. In response to these changes, a selection of casts have been relocated into the Anne Bryan Gallery. Echoing past history, this space will serve not only for public viewing but also as an active working space for our student population. Select cast drawings from the school collection accompany the antique casts. The drawings done by PAFA students and faculty span over one hundred and forty years. Included in this collection are works by former PAFA faculty members, Thomas Anschutz (1851-1912), Daniel Garber (1880-1958), and Harry Rosen (1897-1973). The plaster standing figures are casts of student sculpture done from the life in the annual Edmund Stewardson Prize Competition. This is a rigorous competition with specific rules to represent a full-length figure from life, in the round. Studies must be made within eighteen hours during three consecutive days. All of these drawings and plaster casts offer the opportunity to view work from our historic collection.