Marking the country’s 250th anniversary year, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Philadelphia Museum of Art and have joined forces to present the largest survey of American art ever staged in Philadelphia. Numbering more than a thousand works, the exhibition is now on view across both institutions, drawn from the PMA’s holdings and the Middleton Family Collection, one of the most significant private holdings of American art in the country. The PAFA show is “curated thematically, grouping artworks as never before assembled to explore new ideas, connections, and interpretations of American art.” It also celebrates the reopening of its Historic Landmark Building, a masterpiece of 19th-century architecture. Designed by Frank Furness and George W. Hewitt, it was the first structure in the U.S. designed specifically for both exhibition and art education. —Elena Clavarino