Throughout 2026, Schoelkopf Gallery celebrates the gallery’s 25th anniversary and the 250th anniversary of America's founding with a landmark program of exhibitions, scholarship, and events that recognize the legacy and evolution of American art.
The yearlong initiative begins with the opening of the exhibition 25 | 250: A Celebration of American Art on January 16. The first installment of an ambitious two-part survey, the exhibition traces the evolution and achievements of American art across the 19th and 20th centuries. The second part of the exhibition opens in late October and will continue the scope of the initiative into the 21st century.
The first part of the exhibition showcases exceptional works by American artists that offer a sweeping perspective on the evolution of American art by encompassing a wide range of time and geography. Paintings, works on paper, and a bronze sculpture created from the 1850s to the 1940s in locations spanning the east and west coasts will be on view.
The artists featured include Thomas Hart Benton, Albert Bierstadt, Carl Oscar Borg, Alfred T. Bricher, Dennis Miller Bunker, William Merritt Chase, Frederic Edwin Church, Arthur Dove, John La Farge, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Sanford Robinson Gifford, Marsden Hartley, William Stanley Haseltine, Childe Hassam, Martin Johnson Heade, Winslow Homer, John Frederick Kensett, Fitz Henry Lane, Jacob Lawrence, Paul Manship, Alfred Maurer, Thomas Moran, Gerald Murphy, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jane Peterson, Maurice Prendergast, John Singer Sargent, T. Worthington Whittredge, and Irving Ramsey Wiles.
In concert with the exhibition, the gallery is collaborating with 25 renowned scholars and curators throughout the year to highlight and reinterpret 25 key works and artists in the American story through new scholarship and rotating Spotlight presentations. This notable and accomplished group of experts includes Barbara Dayer Gallati, Claire Ittner, Patricia Junker, Franklin Kelly, Lauren Kroiz, Carol Troyen, and Phoebe Wolfskill, among others.
The yearlong program underscores the gallery’s commitment to generating new scholarship and engaging the public through the enduring power of American art to reflect the nation’s evolving spirit across centuries. The initiative will culminate with the release of a new fully-illustrated volume in the fall of 2026, published by Schoelkopf Gallery.
In tandem with the opening of the first part of 25 | 250: A Celebration of American Art, a yearlong series of Spotlight exhibitions kicks off with a presentation of three significant Andrew Wyeth tempera paintings from the collection of a notable American art museum. The Spotlight series will be exhibited on a rotating basis in the gallery’s viewing room and offers an intimate, month-long presentation of a single American masterwork or group of dynamic works paired with commissioned scholarship to deepen understanding and invite dialogue.
“The Semiquincentennial provides an opportunity to celebrate and appreciate the profound power of art within the American experience: narrating the stories of the nation, challenging societal norms, stirring emotion and debate, and helping to define the future of the country,” says Andrew Schoelkopf, Founder of Schoelkopf Gallery. “Through this year-round program, we recognize this incredible legacy and the artists and masterworks that have played a role in its formation. It is fitting that this momentous year aligns with the gallery’s 25th anniversary, which provides an opportunity to reflect on our own role in advancing and expanding the appreciation of American art.”
American art began as a regional tool of nation-building—portraits of Presidents, Revolutionary War heroes, and stirring images of independence gave a blurry image of an emerging American identity. In 1876, the Philadelphia Centennial marked 100 years of American independence, igniting a nationwide appreciation for art and the realization that art could reflect history, provoke thought, and define culture. Fast forward to the Bicentennial in 1976, American art had evolved into a pluralistic force—one that celebrated identity, questioned power, and mirrored the complexity of the nation itself.
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