November [17,] 1970, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

(Huebner) RP November 16, 1970 SUGGESTED REMARKS - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Background: Note that the name of this institution is "The Pennsylvania Academy of THE Fine Arts. 11 It is the oldest public art gallery in America and is considered to have one of the four best collections of American art in the world. The exhibition which is being opened is called "to save a Heritage" and features works which have been recovered and/or restored. The Stuart portrait of Dolley Madison which now hangs in the Red Room was loaned to the White House by this institution constitutes the first extended loan of works of art outside of Philadelphia in the history of the Academy. Four or five other paintings are also on loan from the Academy to the White House at this time. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was founded 165 years ago by Joseph Hopkinson and other interested townspeople who met first at the home of Charles Willson Peale. The formal petition for an act of incorporation was signed on the day after Christmas, 1805, in the Declaration Chamber at Independence Hall. Robert Fulton's collection of paintings formed the basis of the Academy's collection. The present building was designed by the famous architect Frank Furness and completed in 1876 in time for the centennial celebration of that year. Philadelphia has been a center of American painting throughout our history. The ranks of great Philadelphia painters include Gilbert Stuart, the Peales (a family whose paintings are well represented at the White House), Thomas Eakins (Ay-kins) who painted in the late nineteenth century. The Philadelphia area, of course, has given us the Wyeths. The three restored works which are being unveiled on this occasion are: "George Frederick Cooke as Richard III" by Thomas Sully; William Adolphe Bouguereau's "The Choephorae" and "The First City Troop on Parade" by William Becker. (They are supposed to represent the American