Barnes Foundation focuses art world’s attention on Ben Franklin Parkway

Stretching from City Hall to the Art Museum, the Parkway is packed with arts and culture.

With the Barnes Foundation now open on Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway, art-lovers and casual appreciators are poised to spend this summer and beyond exploring the culturally rich stretch that spans from City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. An interactive website (www.visitphilly.com/withart) recently launched to let visitors curate their own plentiful art experiences.

Art Museum
www.philamuseum.org
One of the city’s most recognized buildings, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, houses Renaissance, American, Impressionist and Modern artworks. In celebration of the Barnes’ opening, the Art Museum will display “Gauguin, Cezanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia,” June 20 through Sept. 3. Outside of the museum, visitors can strike their best winning pose in front of the Rocky statue.

PAFA
www.pafa.org
Best known for its 19th- and 20th-century American paintings, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is also a national leader in fine arts education. PAFA is marking the opening of the Barnes Foundation with “PAFA and Dr. Barnes,” featuring pieces from the permanent collection that relate to Barnes’s tastes and philosophy, through July 8.

Franklin Institute
www.fi.edu
The Fels Planetarium, the Tuttleman IMAX Theater and the Joel N. Bloom Observatory join with flight simulators, a sky bike and the iconic Giant Heart to make The Franklin Institute Science Museum a fun favorite for all ages. Through Oct. 14, The Franklin hosts “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times.”

Rodin Museum
www.rodinmuseum.org
In July of 2011, the Rodin Museum unveiled its redesigned outdoor sculpture garden; in July 2012, the museum will open its fully renovated interior, home to the most extensive public collection of Auguste Rodin’s works outside Paris, including “The Thinker” and a bronze cast of “The Gates of Hell.”

The Barnes
www.barnesfoundation.org
To house the late Albert Barnes’ treasured art holdings, architects have designed a building that duplicates Barnes’ original gallery while adding classrooms and an interior garden space. The new Barnes Foundation allows the world’s largest collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings, as well as African sculptures, to be viewed as intended. Reservations are suggested.

– Contributed by The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation. The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation makes Philadelphia and The Countryside(r) a premier destination through marketing and image building that increases business and promotes the region’s vitality.