Temple Gold Medal

A Temple Medal recognized the best oil painting by an American artist shown in PAFA's annual exhibition.

Recipients included James Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Robert Henri and Edward Hopper.

The medal was named for Philadelphia merchant Joseph E. Temple (1811–1880), a patron of the arts and PAFA Board member, whose bequest of $51,000 funded the awards.

Juries in painting and sculpture, composed of PAFA faculty and invited artists, evaluated hundreds (and later thousands) of submissions and chose those for exhibition.

[1] A silver medal would have been awarded to William B. T. Trego for The March to Valley Forge, but he refused to accept it.

[5] Famously, Thomas Eakins, who had been forced to resign as director of PAFA's school in 1886, accepted his 1904 award for Archbishop William Henry Elder by declaring, ”I think you’ve got a heap of impudence to give me a medal."