Woodmere Art Museum is one of Philadelphia’s lesser-known cultural treasures – not only does it house a fantastic collection of artwork, it also is located in two beautiful historic mansions, is surrounded by beautiful gardens and sculptures, and reflects a fascinating window into Philadelphia’s history.
The central house at Woodmere was built around 1860, at a time when wealthy Philadelphians were establishing estates in rural areas such as Chestnut Hill as a retreat from city life. Though nobody really knows where the name Woodmere came from, it already had the name by the time the Italianate stone house was purchased by Charles Knox Smith in either 1898 or 1901, depending on the source.
Born of humble means in 1845, Smith made his fortune in the oil and mining industries. Shortly after purchasing the mansion, he added an art gallery, which he rapidly expanded. Smith was immensely proud of his collection and his “Edison ceiling”, which used electric lighting – still a novelty at the time – to allow visitors to view artwork after sunset. Smith believed that pairing natural beauty with art had a spiritual significance, which is evidenced both by his placement of sculptures in the surrounding landscape and his appreciation for landscape painters including Hudson River School artists such as Frederic Edwin Church and Edmund Darch Lewis.
Upon his death in 1916, Smith wanted his collection and his home to be opened to the public as a museum. This vision wasn’t realized until 1940. The next phase of the museum’s history was shaped by Edith Emerson and her partner Violet Oakley, who steered the collection’s acquisitions towards woman artists and artists from the Philadelphia region. This legacy endures in the collection, which has grown to over 8,000 works.
In 2025, Woodmere opened an expansion: the Frances M. Maguire Hall for Art & Education, which is located a short walk away in another magnificent historic estate. Maguire Hall adds about 17,000 square feet of space that includes a children’s art studio, lecture and program space, a “jewelry vault”, and four additional acres of gardens and landscaped areas. Maguire Hall displays artwork in a salon style reminiscent of how work would have been hung in Smith’s era, and represent an amazing cross-section of styles, mediums, time periods, and themes.
Woodmere Art Museum was well worth the visit before the acquisition of Maguire Hall, and now it has cemented its status as one of the region’s premier cultural destinations. It is a joy to view the collections as well as the buildings and grounds, and its affordable entrance rates (which include discounts for seniors, free entry on Sundays, and free entry for students) continue Smith’s vision of an oasis of artwork that is open to all into the 21st century.
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