[5] The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was founded in 1805 by painter and scientist Charles Willson Peale, sculptor William Rush, and other artists and business leaders.

Students in the certificate program learned fundamentals of drawing, painting, sculpture, and printmaking, including relief, intaglio, and lithography, for two years.

[13] In 1895, one of her pupils, her younger cousin Cecilia Beaux, became the first female faculty member at the academy to instruct painting and drawing.

Rich endowments were made to the schools, a gallery of national portraiture was formed, and some of the best examples of Gilbert Stuart's work acquired.

The annual exhibitions attained a brilliancy and éclat hitherto unknown ... Mr. Coates wisely established the schools upon a conservative basis, building almost unconsciously the dykes high against the oncoming flow of insane novelties in art patterns ...

In this last struggle against modernism the President was ably supported by Eakins, Anschutz, Grafly, [Henry Joseph] Thouron, Vonnoh, and Chase ... His unfailing courtesy, his disinterested thoughtfulness, his tactfulness, and his modesty endeared him to scholars and masters alike.

It was under Mr. Coates' enlightened direction that was fulfilled the expressed wish of Benjamin West, the first honorary Academician, that "Philadelphia may be as much celebrated for her galleries of paintings by the native genius of the country, as she is distinguished by the virtues of her people; and that she may be looked up to as the Athens of the Western World in all that can give polish to the human mind.

Among the many masterpieces acquired during his tenure were works by Cecilia Beaux, William Merritt Chase, Frank Duveneck, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, and Edmund Tarbell.

Work by The Eight, which included former academy students Robert Henri and John Sloan, provides a transition between 19th- and 20th-century art movements.

Beginning in 1929, qualified students have been able to apply for and receive a coordinated Bachelor of Fine Arts program from the University of Pennsylvania.

[2] In January 2007, in association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the academy purchased Thomas Eakins's work The Gross Clinic from the Jefferson Medical School.

Designed by the American architects Frank Furness and George Hewitt, it has been called "One of the most magnificent Victorian buildings in the country.

[9] The building's exterior coloration combines "rusticated brownstone, dressed sandstone, polished pink granite, red pressed brick, and purplish terra-cotta.

[22] The inside of the building is equally varied, combining "gilt floral patterns incised on a field of Venetian red; ... [a] cerulean blue ceiling sprinkled with silver stars", and plum, ochre, sand and olive green gallery walls.

[9] The book A Century After, picturesque glimpses of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania includes the following on the 1876 opening: The newly-built Academy of Fine Arts will bear comparison with any institution of its kind in America.

Its situation, with a street on each of its three sides, and an open space along a considerable portion of the fourth, is very advantageous as regards lighting, and freedom from risk by fire.

It is built of brick, the principal entrance, which is two stories high, being augmented with encaustic tiles, terra-cotta statuary, and light stone dressings.

The Cherry Street front is relieved by a colonnade supporting arched windows, back of which is the transept and pointed gable.

Along the Cherry Street side of the Academy are five galleries arranged for casts from the antique; and, further on, are rooms for drapery painting, and the life class.