Philadelphia Sketch Club
The Philadelphia Sketch Club, founded on November 20, 1860, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is one of America's oldest artists' clubs. The club's own web page proclaims it "the" oldest. Prominent members have included Joseph Pennell, Thomas Eakins, A.B. Frost, Howard Chandler Christy, and N.C. Wyeth. The club's mission is "to provide a community for visual artists, appreciation of the visual arts and visual arts education." The club's low-cost workshops and competitions are open to the public. All interested artists are invited to apply for membership. The club's activities are sustained by gifts  from members, friends and nearly 20 major foundations, corporations and historical organizations. The club has held shows and exhibitions since its founding. Medal winners from the club's shows include Violet Oakley, John Folinsbee and Betty Bowes. In April 2008, the club held its 145th Annual Exhibition of Small Oil Paintings at the club's main gallery. The club's art collection includes 44 portraits of members painted in the 1890s by Thomas Anshutz; more than 125 etchings by members of the Philadelphia Society of Etchers; and sculpture, stained glass, ceramics, bronze plaques, medals and metal work by its own  members. The Club lends pieces to other organizations and exhibitors from time to time. The Club's archives contain information from artists associated with the club. History. The Sketch Club was founded by George F. Bensell and his brother, Edmund Birckhead Bensell; Edward J. McIlhenny; Henry C. Bispham; John L. Gihon; and Robert Wylie — all students at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where they felt that they lacked design opportunities. Since its beginning, the Club has endeavored to offer affordable life drawing classes and mount exhibitions to display local artists' work. In 1866, the club held its first annual  exhibition. The review in the "New York Times" began: The impression made upon the visitor to the exhibition of paintings by the Philadelphia Sketch Club at the Derby Gallery, is one of disappointment rather than of pleasure, however modest may be his expectations before entering. True, there are in the collection a number of good paintings, and a few of more than passing merit. This, at least, might be considered guaranteed by the presence of several names in the catalogue pleasingly familiar to the connoisseur, but in a collection of over two hundred and sixty paintings exhibited, a selection doubtless  from a larger number, it would not have been unreasonable to have expected a more frequent recurrence of that pleasure with which visitors linger near an occasional work of art. The article goes on to discuss 19 of the pieces in detail and eight in passing "deserving of special mention." Among the Club's famous members was Thomas Eakins, who was the life drawing and anatomy instructor for several years until he left in 1876 to become an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His honorary membership was revoked in the same 1886 scandal that cost him his  position at PAFA. Thomas P. Anshutz joined the Sketch Club in 1877 and was President of the Club from 1910 until his untimely death in 1912. Available for viewing, the clubhouse's upper walls of the library hold an important group of 44 portraits of early members painted by Thomas Anshutz while he was Dean of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Anshutz offered to paint portraits of other members with the only requirement that each sitter provide his own canvas of uniform size. Its current clubhouse, assembled from three brick row-houses from the 1820s, is listed in the  Philadelphia Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing property to the Washington Square West Historic District. The Sketch Club purchased two of these units in 1902 and the third in 1908. Shortly after their purchase, the first two row-houses were extensively renovated to form a single building. The third property was connected internally to the other two in 1915. The three adjoining basements formed a large Rathskeller (dining room) and kitchen. The first floor rooms include a billiard room, library, archive room, sitting room and vestibule areas. The second floor rooms and  attics formed a large, sky-lit exhibition gallery and classroom. The club has staged an annual Philadelphia District High School Students Art Exhibition since 1984; the 26th show took place February 1–21, 2010. A jury awards prizes. Membership. The Sketch Club was a male-only club for its first 130 years. Philadelphia's club for women artists, the Plastic Club, was formed in 1897. For more than 100 years these two organizations had an amiable and cooperative relationship, just three doors apart on Camac Street. The Sketch Club received its 501(c)(3) non-profit status in early 1990. Several months after  that, the club decided to begin seeking and accepting women members. Reasons behind this effort included making the club a more inclusive and modern-thinking organization, as well as the financial benefits of a larger membership base. Around this time, the Plastic Club also began accepting male members for many of the same reasons. Today, more than 50% of the Sketch Club members are women artists. In the mid-1990s, the Sketch Club elected its first woman president, Betty MacDonald, who had also served as president of The Plastic Club. The club's members have included artists in all mediums: illustration , painting, sculpture, architecture, photography and other forms of the visual arts. Current member Bruce H. Bentzman listed the most prominent of the club's current and former members as: