In 1759, the young Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795), who would become one of England’s most famous potters, established his first factory at the Ivy House Works in Burslem, England. A Purer Taste of Forms and Ornaments: Josiah Wedgwood and the Antique celebrates the 250th anniversary of this vastly influential factory and its extraordinary founder.

This exhibition brings together for the first time the two surviving tondos by the great Flemish master Hans Memling (c.1433 – 1494). These small round oil paintings of the Virgin Mary nursing the infant Jesus are peculiarly personal and affective devotional objects that could be held in the hand or hung on a wall.

The collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Library and Archives have many notable associations with Arshile Gorky, ranging from books bequeathed to the Library by Alfred E. Gallatin (founder of New York University’s Gallery of Living Art, which Gorky frequently visited) to the papers of Julien Levy (Gorky’s New York art dealer). These documents, along with Library books and journals from other sources, provide a snapshot of what informed and inspired Arshile Gorky during his brief career and life.

Members of India’s elite have long been great patrons of both music and the visual arts. This exhibition explores some of the ways court artists have sought to create a bridge between these two rich artistic traditions, by translating the aural qualities of music into a visible form.

Drawn from the Museum's collection, this exhibition features Korean screen paintings with auspicious Chinese narratives juxtaposed with the Chinese ceramics of the Qing dynasty (1616–1912) that are decorated with the similar themes.

Today, Philadelphia is home to many emerging and established metalsmiths who teach, create, and exhibit their work here and elsewhere. On display in this gallery are pieces by several significant Philadelphians—Olaf Skoogfors, Stanley Lechtzin, Jan Yager, Bruce Metcalf, and Sharon Church, to name just a few—as well as recognized artists from around the country.

Common Ground examines a critical period for the art of photography and for the Philadelphia art scene. In the 1960s, photographers including Emmet Gowin, Will Larson, and Ray K. Metzker, among the first generation of photographers trained in university art departments, all came to Philadelphia to teach in the city’s renowned art schools, bringing with them experimental approaches to the medium.

This exhibition draws from the Museum’s extensive collections of modern art to place Gorky among European artists who inspired him, American artists whom he influenced, and expatriate Russian artists with whom he exhibited and worked while living in New York.

Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective celebrates the extraordinary life and work of Arshile Gorky (c. 1902-1948), a seminal figure in the movement toward abstraction that transformed American art. This exhibition, which includes about 178 works of art, surveys Gorky’s entire career from the early 1920s until his death by suicide in 1948.

The first exhibition of Sommer’s work in Philadelphia since 1968, Frederick Sommer Photographs presents some forty images spanning the artist’s career, along with a small number of drawings and collages. Included is a rare suite of macabre yet poignant photographs the artist made in 1939 using chicken parts collected from his local butcher.