The club's activities are sustained by gifts from members, friends and nearly 20 major foundations, corporations and historical organizations.

Medal winners from the club's shows include Violet Oakley, John Folinsbee and Betty Bowes.

Since its beginning, the Club has endeavored to offer affordable life drawing classes and mount exhibitions to display local artists' work.

The review in The New York Times began: The impression made upon the visitor to the exhibition of paintings by the Philadelphia Sketch Club at the Derby Gallery, is one of disappointment rather than of pleasure, however modest may be his expectations before entering.

This, at least, might be considered guaranteed by the presence of several names in the catalogue pleasingly familiar to the connoisseur, but in a collection of over two hundred and sixty paintings exhibited, a selection doubtless from a larger number, it would not have been unreasonable to have expected a more frequent recurrence of that pleasure with which visitors linger near an occasional work of art.

Available for viewing, the clubhouse's upper walls of the library hold an important group of 44 portraits [9] of early members painted by Thomas Anshutz while he was Dean of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

[11]The club has staged an annual Philadelphia District High School Students Art Exhibition since 1984; the 26th show took place February 1–21, 2010.

Reasons behind this effort included making the club a more inclusive and modern-thinking organization, as well as the financial benefits of a larger membership base.

The club's members have included artists in all mediums: illustration, painting, sculpture, architecture, photography and other forms of the visual arts.