Register Here

This fall, the Arthur Ross Gallery will feature the work of notable figures, such as Benjamin Franklin, alongside depictions of daily life in Philadelphia by Gilbert Stuart, John Lewis Krimmel, members of the Peale family, and other artists active in the era of the Revolution. Join Dr. Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Inaugural Faculty Director of the Arthur Ross Gallery and the James and Nan Farquhar Professor of the History of Art, and Lynn Smith Dolby, Director of the Penn Art Collection, for a virtual tour of the show, followed by live Q & A. This exhibition draws on the holdings of the University of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Winterthur Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw is the James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor of the History of Art and the Inaugural Faculty Director of the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on portraiture and issues of representation in the American context, with an emphasis on the Black experience. She has previously served on the faculty of Harvard University and as the Senior Historian, Acting Chief Curator, and Director of Research, Publications, and Scholarly Programs at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. In addition to her books, The Art of Remembering, Essays on African American Art and History, (Duke: 2024), Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker (Duke: 2004) and First Ladies of the United States (Smithsonian: 2020), she has also curated numerous exhibitions, including “Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century” (2006), “Represent: 200 Years of African American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art” (2015), “I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker’s Portraits of Remarkable Black Women,” at the National Portrait Gallery (2021-23), and “Collecting the New Irascibles: Art in the 1980s,” at Penn’s Arthur Ross Gallery (2026).

Lynn Smith Dolby earned a Master’s Degree in the History of Art from Tyler School of Art & Architecture at Temple University. As the Director of The Penn Art Collection, she has played a pivotal role in curating exhibitions drawn from the University’s holdings including “From Studio to Doorstep: Associated American Artists Prints” at the Arthur Ross Gallery. Lynn is dedicated to enhancing the campus’s cultural landscape by forging new partnerships and activating unique exhibition spaces, as well as curating rotating exhibitions of the University’s extensive photography collection.

Lynn is deeply committed to connecting Penn students with art and is the founder of Art Match, a program which allows students to borrow an original work of art for their dorm room for a full academic year. Lynn is currently a candidate in the Master in Law program at Penn Carey Law, where she is studying the intersection of art and law, focusing on intellectual property and copyright issues.