McFadden Galleries in the Round

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McFadden Galleries 

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 On the Street Where They Worked

No. 121 Chestnut Street, on left, middle, headquarters of Geo. H. McFadden & Bro.
Street hasn't changed much from 19th century.

COLLECTION

The John H. McFadden

 Memorial Collection

Lady Rodney (Thomas Gainsborough)

WASHINGTON

 Smithsonian Institution 

DEATH & BURIAL

Obituaries and Laurel Hill Cemetery

WILL

 ACT OF CREATION

YouTube

WATCH IT HERE

 

FRIENDS & FAMILY

 FRIENDS AND FAMILY

FURTHER READING

 Aldrich, Jr., Nelson W., Old Money, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.

———, Tommy Hitchcock, An American Hero, London: Fleet Street Corporation, 1984.

Alsop, Joseph, The Rare Art Traditions, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1982.

Armory, Cleveland, The Trouble with Nowadays, New York: Arbor House, 1979.

———, Who Killed Society, New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1960.

Aspin, Chris, The Cotton Industry, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Shire Publications Ltd., 2012.

Founders

BUILDERS AND FIXERS

Fiske Kimball

John H. McFadden and His Age (Introduction)

Beau Ideal

 IN A CITY where Benjamin Franklin’s legacy permeates the institutional landscape, it is easy to believe that the Philadelphia Museum of Art is another of Philadelphia’s ancient and legendary cultural institutions. Many of them indeed date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, founded in 1805, and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, begun in 1814. And Franklin was in fact associated with two public institutions: the Library Company (1731) and the American Philosophical Society (1743).

 In contrast, the Philadelphia Museum is a mere youngblood, less than a century from its opening in 1928 as the Pennsylvania Museum of Art. That is, if we are considering it as it is today: the majestic Greek Revival colossus atop Fairmount Hill.

 But the museum’s roots run much deeper, to the late nineteenth century, in its first incarnation in 1877 as the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art. By this measure, it is actually older than the iconic Metropolitan Museum of Art (1880) in New York.

REVIEWS & COMMENT

This Collector You’ve Never Heard Of Helped Spark the Creation of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Richard Carreño’s new biography of John H. McFadden is simply a ton of fun.

by SANDY HINGSTON· 8/17/2021, 2:13 p.m.

Get a compelling long read and must-have lifestyle tips in your inbox every Sunday morning — great with coffee!

A biography of John H. McFadden by Richard Carreño

So you get an emailed press release about a new biography of a Philadelphian you never heard of, and the subtitle is “Cotton and Culture in Philadelphia,” and you think: Huh? Cotton and Philly? And you almost hit delete. But for some reason — hey, anybody who still writes real books deserves at least a chance — you decide to read the thing. And the upshot is that you spend the next three straight days spellbound, while laughing out loud with delight so often that your husband keeps saying: “What’s that book about again?”

That’s what happened to me with John H. McFadden and His Age, a new biography by Richard Carreño (Camino Books). And let me tell you, as someone who likes to think she knows something about Philly history, I found it both humbling and fascinating to learn about an era and a guy I’d never known anything about.

McFADDEN ROOMS AT PMA

PMA McFadden Rooms

BOOK SALES

NEW YORK

 New York Residence

(Contemporary View)

PHILADELPHIA

McFadden's Philadelphia

Rittenhouse Club

Stotesbury houses, Walnut Street

Holy Trinity Church

MEMPHIS

 COTTON ROW

19th & WALNUT and WELLINGTON

 19th & WALNUT AND WELLINGTON

LONDON

 

PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART

 

LIVERPOOL

LOCAL VENUES

The Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool's finest.

PORTRAITS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 Thank You!

The intricacy of this book, roaming over a period of almost 100 years, with most 

its narrative played out in Liverpool, London, New York, and principally, of 

course in Philadelphia, required much editorial advice, research assistance, and 

personal support. Though these benefits were shared in different measures, I 

want to thank  all those, whatever their role and  contribution, who happily and 

willingly made their valuable impact on this end product.

My on-site research in Liverpool and London involved forging new 

relationships with colleagues and sometimes making new friends. Two 

individuals in particular, Dr. Nigel Hall, most recently a research fellow at 

the University of Essex, and Ron Jones, of the Liverpool Athenaeum, gave 

of themselves selflessly.