Home > LECTURES & LITERATURE > Art-at-Lunch: The Richard Allen Monument at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition

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Art-at-Lunch: The Richard Allen Monument at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition

Presented by Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA)

November 3, 2010

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Join PAFA staff and students for this series of talks on American art and culture every Wednesday at noon. Enjoy discussions and lectures with scholars and artists covering a variety of topics related to PAFA's exhibitions, collections, and areas of interest. Visitors are encouraged to bring a bagged lunch, though limited options will be available for sale outside the Auditorium doors. Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition debuted the first African American public sculptural project in U. S. history--a monument to Richard Allen, one of the nation's black founding fathers and creator of the first black church in America, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. The Allen monument was lost soon after the exhibition and was only recently rediscovered and returned to Philadelphia, where it is currently on view at the Mother Bethel AME church until 2011. Dr. Susanna Gold, Assistant Professor in the Tyler School of Art, discusses the significance of the sculpture's creation and exhibition within its original context.