🎨 The Philly Art Beat — Your Local Art Roundup (June 18)

Happy Juneteenth week, Philly artists! The city is absolutely overflowing with art right now. Between the Semiquincentennial celebrations, a citywide arts festival wrapping up, and free museum days kicking off tomorrow, there has never been a better time to be making (and seeing) art in Philadelphia. Grab your sketchbook, your camera, your fellow creatives, and get out there. Here's what's happening.

🖼 On the walls right now

• A Nation of Artists at PMA + PAFA, This landmark dual-museum exhibition celebrates the history and evolution of American art, uniting collections from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, PAFA, and the Middleton Family Collection (on public display for the first time). You'll find everyone from Georgia O'Keeffe and Thomas Eakins to Lenape artist Laura Watters. PMA's portion fills all 12,000 square feet of its renovated American galleries. On view through July 5, 2027 at PMA and through September at PAFA. Bonus: if you buy a ticket to one museum, you get 50% off the other within seven days.

• America Today: Voices in Contemporary Print at The Print Center, Printmakers, this is your show. Thirty-seven artists from six community printshops across the country explore democracy, civil rights, and cultural heritage through 42 works on paper. Free admission in the Rittenhouse Square gallery, on view through July 25. Mark July 11 for their interactive printing event.

• Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments at PMA, A timely exhibition exploring monuments, memory, and public reckoning. On view in the Dorrance Galleries through August 2, 2026.

• This Is (Not) a Celebration: Queer Resistance 1976/2026 at Huddle 215, The William Way LGBTQ Community Center presents photography, ceramics, and fiber installations by local artists revisiting LGBTQ+ activism from the 1976 Bicentennial. Through July 3, 2026. A great Pride Month visit.

• Children's Art Exhibition at Taller Puertorriqueño, Part of Taller's powerful WE WILL NOT HIDE program, this show features works by young artists exploring masking traditions in Latin American cultures and youth perspectives on the 1976 march. June 12 through July 4, 2026.

🎉 Fresh openings to circle

• New Exhibition at Pentimenti Gallery, Opening reception on June 26 from 6 to 8 pm, with the show running through July 24. Pentimenti is one of Philly's best spots for contemporary work in a wide range of mediums. Jackie Milad's online exhibition is also viewable through June 27.

• First Friday in Old City, July 3, Thirty-plus galleries stay open late, unveil new shows, and welcome everyone in. If you time it right, you'll catch new exhibitions and meet fellow artists in what has been called one of America's top ArtPlaces. Free, walkable, and always inspiring.

🙋 Get in on it (don't just look, participate)

• ArtPhilly: What Now: 2026 Festival, The inaugural citywide festival features over 30 original commissions across music, dance, film, visual arts, and more, running through July 2. There is still plenty of programming to catch in these final two weeks, including Kea and the Ark (workshops and discussions on select dates through July 1) and the gallery at 12 Gates Arts.

• Wawa Welcome America: Free Museum Days, Starting tomorrow (June 19) through July 4, at least one Philly museum or attraction offers free or pay-what-you-wish admission every single day. Fifty museums are participating this year. That's 16 days of free gallery-going, folks. Check the schedule and plan your route.

• FJORD Gallery 2026 Open Call, Deadline is TOMORROW, June 19. All media welcome. You're being considered for a group exhibition (August 22 to September 26, 2026) or a solo show (May 8 to June 12, 2027). FJORD is artist-run, nonprofit, and located at Crane Arts. If you've been sitting on a submission, today is the day.

• InLiquid Open Call: Park Towne Place Mural, InLiquid is looking for a mural artist for the 2026 rotation at Park Towne Place Museum District Residences, right on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. A prominent wall, a community of over 2,000 residents, and a real portfolio piece. Check their opportunities page for details.

💛 Feel-good corner

• Printmaking by the People: Mural Arts Philadelphia's biggest community art project, Over the past two years, Mural Arts hosted more than 50 artist-led workshops across libraries, community centers, and neighborhood hubs, asking thousands of everyday Philadelphians one question: "What does freedom require today?" Participants made prints using collage, stamps, monotypes, and linocuts. Now muralists Phillip Adams and Rhonda Babb are weaving hundreds of those community prints into a cohesive mural debuting in 2026. It is an homage both to America's founding printmakers and to the people who make up Philadelphia today. Meanwhile, Mural Arts is also unveiling new murals this year celebrating Boyz II Men in South Philly and LGBTQ+ trailblazer Gloria Casarez back in the Gayborhood. This city and its walls just keep telling better stories.

That's your roundup, Philly. Whether you're soaking up exhibitions, hitting a deadline, or just wandering the city with fresh eyes this Juneteenth week, know that your work matters and this city is better because you're making things in it. Go fill a sketchbook. 💛

P.S. If you're showing work, entering a fair, or have news to share, the ArtHelper Assistant can help you turn it into a polished social post or caption. Just ask.

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