At Liberty: Life in the City of Brotherly Love During the Early Republic is now on view
September 2, 2026
(From left) Second-years Andrew Kim (Penn Engineering), Shourya Chhabra (College of Arts & Sciences), Doyoon Seol (College) and Andy Wang (College and Wharton School). Photograph by Louisa Shepard.
Second Year Experience gave away Phillies tickets at the See & Sip event. Photograph by Helen Zhang.
Students enjoy refreshments in the lobby of the Fisher Fine Arts Library. Photograph by Louisa Shepard.
Students enjoy refreshments in the lobby of the Fisher Fine Arts Library. Photograph by Louisa Shepard.
Second-year students had the opportunity to view At Liberty on its opening day. Photograph by Helen Zhang.
Photograph by Helen Zhang.
Penn students were among the first visitors to the exhibition as part of the Second Year Experience program
Among the first visitors to the Arthur Ross Gallery’s fall exhibition, At Liberty: Life in the City of Brotherly Love During the Early Republic, were dozens of Penn students invited as part of the Second Year Experience organized by the Office of New Student Orientation and Academic Initiatives.
More than 100 students visited the exhibition on the Aug. 28 opening day. They had the opportunity to sign up for free tickets to a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game, dress up in colonial garb for polaroid photos, and enjoy lite fare together at a reception. They also put in orders for a free t-shirt featuring an artwork by artist and Penn alum Allison Zuckerman whose paintings currently are on view at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.
On view through Dec. 13, the At Liberty exhibition asks visitors to consider the role of visual culture in creating collective conceptions of Philadelphia and its residents, including Penn founder Benjamin Franklin, in the decades just before and after the nation’s founding.
The celebratory opening reception is 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 9, in the Gallery. Numerous exhibition-related events are planned, including lectures, conversations, and tours. Penn students will be available in the Gallery for tours on most Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00-3:00 p.m., and Wednesdays from 4:00-6:00 p.m.
The objects in the exhibition are on loan from several cultural institutions, including the University’s Penn Art Collection and Pennsylvania Hospital, as well as the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Winterthur Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The 41 works on view — including paintings, prints, drawings, and sculpture — portray notable figures alongside depictions of daily life in Philadelphia.
The exhibition is curated by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Inaugural Faculty Director of the Arthur Ross Gallery, and the James and Nan Farquhar Professor of the History of Art at Penn.