Philadelphia College of Art, 1870 – 2024

I have just learned—a few months late—that Philadelphia’s University of the Arts has shut down after years of financial problems. Back when it was still the Philadelphia College of Art, I attended Saturday classes (painting and drawing) there throughout my high school years. It was located in the (barely refurbished!) 1826 Greek Revival Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb building, at Broad and Pine Streets. Long, creepy, hallways, swans in the courtyard that chased us, hissing; and a course load that had not been changed since the school opened in 1870. We cut, stretched, nailed, and gessoed our own canvases; worked from life; blended and erased our charcoal lines with dry bread. After class, my grandmother would take me to the Automat on Chestnut Street (also long gone). The old Art School building remains, at least; I assume it has been landmarked and that some good use will come of it—haunted by the ghosts of the deaf and dumb, us old art students, and some really nasty swans.