Abbreviation aPA Executive Director Penny Balkin Bach | Formation 1872 Founded 1872 | |
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Purpose Commission, preserve, promote and interpret public art in Philadelphia Region served City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Headquarters Pennsylvania, United States Similar Americans for the Arts, Samuel S Fleisher Art Memorial, The Fabric Workshop and Muse, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fin, Free Library of Philadelphia Profiles | ||
Established in 1872 in Philadelphia, the Association for Public Art (formerly Fairmount Park Art Association) is the United State's first private, nonprofit public art organization dedicated to integrating public art and urban planning. The Association for Public Art (aPA) commissions, preserves, promotes and interprets public art in Philadelphia, and it is largely due to the work of the aPA that Philadelphia is said to have more public art than any other American city. The aPA has acquired and commissioned works by many famous sculptors (including Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Alexander Stirling Calder, Daniel Chester French, Frederic Remington, Paul Manship, and Albert Laessle); supported city planning projects; established an outdoor sculpture conservation program; and sponsored numerous publications, exhibitions, and educational programs. The aPA interprets and preserves more than 200 works of art throughout Philadelphia – working closely with the City's Public Art Office, Fairmount Park, and other organizations and agencies responsible for placing and caring for outdoor sculpture in Philadelphia – and maintains an inventory of all of the city's public art.
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History
Chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1872, the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art) was founded by a group of concerned citizens in the late nineteenth century who wanted to beautify Philadelphia's urban landscape with public art to counter the city's encroaching industrialism. The Association initially focused on enhancing Fairmount Park with outdoor sculpture, but the organization's mission expanded in 1906 to include the rest of the city as a whole: to "promote and foster the beautiful in Philadelphia, in its architecture, improvements, and the city plan." Friends Charles H. Howell and Henry K. Fox conceived of the Fairmount Park Art Association, and the organization's first president was Anthony J. Drexel, founder of Drexel University. The Association's first official venture was purchasing Hudson Bay Wolves Quarreling Over the Carcass of a Deer (1872) by Edward Kemeys, and its first major undertaking was commissioning Alexander Milne Calder for an equestrian statue of Major General George Meade in 1873.
Name Change
In May 2012, the Fairmount Park Art Association changed its name to the Association for Public Art (aPA). The change was made to more clearly communicate the nature and scope of the organization's work, and to distinguish itself from other local and national public art agencies The organization's first major project under its new name was Open Air (2012), a world-premiere interactive light installation for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.
Public Artworks
Commissioned works:
Works acquired and owned by the aPA:
Works initiated by the aPA: