The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is the United States' first museum and school of fine arts, founded in 1805 in Philadelphia by painter and scientist Charles Willson Peale, sculptor William Rush, and other artists and business leaders. PAFA is a 501(c)(3) cultural nonprofit located at 118-128 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102, occupying two connected historic buildings — the Frank Furness and George Hewitt-designed Furness-Hewitt Building (1876; designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975) and the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building, joined by Lenfest Plaza.
This repository profiles PAFA in the API Evangelist network. PAFA is a cultural nonprofit, not a technology company — it publishes no developer portal, no APIs, no OpenAPI specifications, no SDKs, and no institutional GitHub organization. This profile documents the institution, its programs, and the absence of any developer surface for completeness of API Evangelist's coverage of American cultural institutions.
- Founded: 1805
- Founders: Charles Willson Peale, William Rush, and other Philadelphia artists and business leaders
- Status: 501(c)(3) cultural nonprofit
- Distinction: First museum and school of fine arts in the United States
- Address: 118-128 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102
- Phone: (215) 972-7600
- Visitor services email: [email protected]
- Type:
company(cultural institution) - Tier: 3 (no-apis)
PAFA's permanent collection focuses on 19th- and 20th-century American art, with notable holdings tied to alumni and faculty including Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Henry Ossawa Tanner, William Glackens, Barkley L. Hendricks, Violet Oakley, Cecilia Beaux, Louis Kahn, David Lynch, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, alongside the Linda Lee Alter Collection of Art by Women.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Hours (Mon, Thu, Sat, Sun) | 10 AM - 5 PM |
| Hours (Friday) | 10 AM - 8 PM (extended) |
| Closed | Tuesday and Wednesday |
| Adults (18+) | $25 |
| Seniors (65+) | $23 |
| Students | $10 |
| Youth (13-17) | $5 |
| Children (12 and under) and Members | Free |
- A Nation of Artists (April 2026 - September 2027) — "a once-in-a-generation presentation celebrating 250 years of American creativity" featuring works from PAFA, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Middleton Family Collection.
- Bodies and Souls (March 2026 - July 2026)
- Student Works: From the 2025-2026 Academic Year (May 2026 - June 2026)
PAFA's collection and tours are delivered through the Bloomberg Connects free, multi-institution mobile app operated by Bloomberg Philanthropies — PAFA's only programmatic third-party distribution surface. PAFA does not operate a first-party mobile app.
In March 2025 PAFA announced a financial crisis driven by a reported roughly $3 million annual deficit and sharp enrollment decline. Beginning with the 2024-2025 academic year, PAFA stopped granting its own BFA and MFA degrees. The institution's active educational pathways as of May 2026 are:
| Program | Format | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Fine Arts Certificate Program | Three-year, on-site | "Designed to prepare students for entry-level professional roles within the visual arts and related creative industries." |
| Continuing Education | In-person and online | "An inclusive studio arts offering for artists of all ages and skill levels, from beginners to advanced creatives." |
| Youth & Teen Programs | K-12, summer | Summer Art Camp, Summer Academy, field trips, family programming. |
| PAFA Shop Memberships | Studio access | "Affordable, self-guided access to professional-grade printmaking, papermaking, and sculpture studios." |
Bachelor's degrees offered jointly through the long-running University of Pennsylvania partnership continue beyond the wind-down of PAFA's own degree-granting authority.
| Surface | Status |
|---|---|
| Public developer portal | None (no developer.pafa.org) |
| Public OpenAPI / AsyncAPI specs | None published |
| Public REST or GraphQL APIs | None — ticketing, donations, and account flows are private |
| Donation platform | Routed to the third-party community.pafa.org/give platform |
| SDKs / CLI / webhooks | None |
| Institutional GitHub org | None — the github.com/pafa handle is an unrelated personal account focused on ERP and WeChat tooling |
| Status page / changelog | None |
| Sandbox / Console | None |
| Engineering blog / RSS | None |
| Third-party programmatic distribution | Bloomberg Connects mobile app only |
Tier rationale: Tier 3 — no-apis. Cultural nonprofit museum and school with no public developer surface. Profiled to record the institution's post-2024-2025 program restructuring, not as an API provider.
| Folder | File | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
apis.yml |
apis.yml |
APIs.json 0.19 institutional index with common properties, fact sheet, alumni/faculty list, active programs, exhibitions, visit terms, and API surface assessment |
json-ld/ |
pafa-context.jsonld |
JSON-LD context mapping PAFA's institutional vocabulary to schema.org Museum, EducationalOrganization, and NGO |
vocabulary/ |
pafa-vocabulary.yml |
Domain vocabulary covering institution, museum, school, visit, giving, and API-surface terms |
No openapi/, asyncapi/, json-schema/, json-structure/, examples/, rules/, capabilities/, plans/, rate-limits/, or finops/ folders exist in this repository — PAFA publishes no API surface to back them.
- Website: https://www.pafa.org
- About: https://www.pafa.org/about
- Museum: https://www.pafa.org/museum
- School: https://www.pafa.org/school
- Visit / Tickets: https://www.pafa.org/museum/visit
- Membership: https://www.pafa.org/members
- Donate: https://community.pafa.org/give
- Planned Giving: https://www.pafa.org/support/planned-giving
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pafacademy
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PAFAcademy
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PAFA
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Academy_of_the_Fine_Arts