Focus on Julian Abele African American architect Julian Abele (pronounced "able") played a key role in the design of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Born in South Philadelphia on April 30, 1881, Abele studied at the Institute for Colored Youth and Brown Preparatory School before completing a two-year course in architectural drawing at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (PMSIA), the progenitor of both the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the University of the Arts. Abele received his Certificate in Architectural Drawing from PMSIA in the spring of 1898 and then entered the architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania that fall, earning his B.S. degree in 1902. He was the first African American to graduate from the university's architecture program. According to accounts by Abele’s family members and contemporaries, after graduation, on the recommendation of a dean, esteemed architect Horace Trumbauer sent Abele to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Although there is no formal record of his attendance, it is likely, given the structure of the Ecole, that he informally attended one of the many ateliers associated with the prestigious institution. Upon his return, he joined the firm of Horace Trumbauer. By 1909, Abele was the chief designer in the firm of Horace Trumbauer & Associates. He participated in the design of an impressive number of important buildings, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was designed by a team of architects from two firms—Horace Trumbauer & Associates and Zantzinger, Borie, and Medary. In addition to the Museum, Abele worked on The Free Library of Philadelphia, the Widener Library at Harvard University, the chapel and many other buildings of Trinity College in Durham, North Carolina (now Duke University), and the James B. Duke House on Fifth Avenue and 78th Street in New York City (now New York University's Institute of Fine Arts). After Trumbauer’s death in 1938, Abele came to play a key role in the completion of the Museum. Although the Museum building had opened in 1928, work continued on its interior through the 1940s and 1950s. In 1942, Fiske Kimball, the Museum director who supervised its construction, described Abele as "one of the most sensitive designers anywhere in America." Abele joined the American Institute of Architects in 1942 and became head of the Trumbauer firm. Abele's role in the firm of Horace Trumbauer was neither a well-kept secret nor a well-publicized fact. It is unclear whether it was Abele's choice to be inconspicuous or whether his obscurity was the product of the racial climate of the times. While reviewing his designs, Abele once remarked, "the shadows are all mine," taking into account his hidden influence and the impact of racism on his career. Abele died on April 23, 1950, after designing the Allen Administration Building at Duke University, a site he never visited due to segregation. He is considered the first major African American architect in the United States. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year. Originally called the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, its founding was inspired by the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) in London, which grew out of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Museum, at that time housed in the Centennial Exposition's Memorial Hall, opened its doors to the public on May 10, 1877. While this location was adequate, it was remote from the vast majority of the city's inhabitants.[1] Construction of the current building began in 1919 when Mayor Thomas B. Smith laid the cornerstone in a Masonic ceremony on the former reservoir land of the decommissioned Fairmount Water Works covering 10 acres (40,000 m2) of ground.[2] The first section was completed in early 1928. The quasi-Greek Revival design was produced by Horace Trumbauer and the firm of Zantzinger, Borie and Medary.[1] The facade of the building is of Minnesota dolomite. The pediment facing the parkway is adorned with sculptures by C. Paul Jennewein depicting Greek gods and goddesses. There is also a collection of griffins, which were adopted as the symbol of the museum in the 1970s.[1] The Museum's building is fondly nicknamed the Parthenon on the Parkway. For the better part of a century the McIlhenny family held an important relationship with the Museum. Henry P. McIlhenny was involved for almost half a century, first as curator from 1939 to 1964, then as chairman of the board in 1976 until his death in 1986, when he left the bulk of his estate to the Museum. The institution describes itself as "one of the largest museums in the United States",[3] and its collections comprise more

Woman in Gray (Femme en gris) Throughout his long career, Picasso remained devoted to the human figure, rendered with varying degrees of naturalism and abstraction. The seated female figure in these works is often identified by her broad-brimmed hat and veil as Picasso’s partner and fellow artist Dora Maar (nee Henriette Theodora Markovitch, 1907–1997). Picasso scholars are quick to note, however, that the extreme abstractions of the figure—particularly the face—express the era’s violence and uncertainties rather than offer an interpretation of a specific individual. Here Picasso deploys a number of signature distortions found in his works of this period—flattened features, a snoutlike nose, bared teeth, and an uneven gaze. With dramatic tonal contrasts in the face from white to dark gray and black, Picasso paradoxically suggests the dramatic shifts of light and shade, or chiaroscuro, that usually accompany modeled, rounded form rather than the flat, unmodulated color seen here. Artist: Pablo Picasso, Spanish, 1881-1973 Medium: Oil on panel Place Made: France Dates: 1942 Dimensions: 39 1/4 x 31 7/8 in. (99.7 x 81 cm) Frame: 51 1/4 x 43 1/4 x 3 1/4 in. (130.2 x 109.9 x 8.3 cm) Signature: Signed upper left: "Picasso" Collections: European Art