Donald Moss: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

Artist: Donald Moss
1920 -
Nationality: American
Artwork Year: 1980
Image Size: 15 by 16 inches
Overall Size: 20 by 20.25 inches
Medium: Oil on Cold Press Illustration Board

No architect has risen to greater favor in his own time or plunged to greater rejection in later years than Frank Heyling Furness (1839-1912), the architect who dominated Philadelphia's architectural scene and designed the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, today regarded as his greatest surviving building and one of America's quintessential Victorian landmarks. Acclaimed when it was opened in 1876 to great crowds of Centennial Exposition visitors, its vigorous and imaginative polychrome design caused a sensation in the normally subdued Quaker City. Housing both a museum and art school, it was both exotic and eclectic, flamboyantly decorated in the latest high Victorian manner and flooded with natural light its exterior more restrained than its interior. In it, Furness created an amalgamation of deliberate oddities of arrangement and strangely placed windows, dwarf columns, diaper-patterned brick, mansarded and decorated pavilions, turrets, and rounded as well as pointed arches that cried bedlam to some. So, the days of its original glory were numbered: by 1900 its design and decoration were unfashionable, actually in "bad taste." As a result, the Academy was allowed to deteriorate through decades of grime and neglect, and to change through a myriad of "modern improvements." Only recognition in 1973 of Furness' work as great architecture and the building's thorough restoration to its original splendor in 1976 saved this abused and irreplaceable landmark.

This artwork was originally published on a Fleetwood® First Day Cover for the U.S. 15¢ Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts stamp issued October 9, 1980.

Artwork Copyright © 1980 Unicover Corporation. All Rights Reserved under United States and international copyright laws. You may not reproduce, distribute, transmit, or otherwise exploit the Artwork in any way. Images of the Artwork may be watermarked and/or digitally watermarked. Any sale of the physical original does not include or convey the Copyright or any right comprised in the copyright.

Our Stock Number (SKU): XB06093

US$ Price: $2,250.00

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