Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts loses its artistic chief, implements other personnel changes

As it undergoes a series of institutional changes, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is losing its top artistic authority.

PAFA veteran Anna O. Marley, who has been the Academy’s chief of curatorial affairs and held an endowed position as curator of historical American art, is exiting after a decade and a half. She is joining the Toledo Museum of Art as its director of curatorial affairs.

She leaves the Academy July 25 and takes up her new post Sept. 3, she said a few days ago.

PAFA has also brought back a former leader to chair the board. Donald R. Caldwell, 78, board chair during an eventful period from 1996 to 2011, was reelected to his old position effective July 1, succeeding Anne E. McCollum.

In addition, as PAFA phases out its college degree programs and develops a replacement certificate program, it has hired a new chief learning officer. Sonia BasSheva Mañjon — formerly an associate professor of arts administration, education and policy at Ohio State University, and inaugural director of the school’s Lawrence and Isabel Barnett Center for Integrated Arts and Enterprise — began her PAFA post in June. She oversees museum education, public programming, precollege programming, the certificate programs, noncredit programs, and community outreach.

Marley, a specialist in American art from the colonial era to 1945, curated more than 16 exhibitions at PAFA — including “Spiritual Strivings: A Celebration of African American Works on Paper” and shows on Henry Ossawa Tanner, Thomas Eakins, and early American landscapes. Most recently, she was in the midst of working on a reinstallation of PAFA’s permanent collection slated to open in spring 2026.

In Toledo, she will be leading an eight-member curatorial team working on a 2027 reinstallation of the museum that aims to be more fully representative, drawing on a 30,000-piece collection spanning from ancient Greece and Rome to contemporary works.

“I’ve long wanted to expand my curatorial scope to a broader history, and want to reframe art history to be more inclusive — what I feel like I did at PAFA but on a larger scale,” she said.

Marley, 49, said she was recruited for the new job, and was attracted by the Toledo museum’s strengths.

“The curatorial team is brilliant; they have great buildings, a great team and a big endowment — how can you turn that down?”

How Marley’s responsibilities will be handled at PAFA in the future has not been entirely decided. A national search will be launched for the curator of historical American art part of her job. About the chief of curatorial affairs position, a spokesperson said PAFA would “evaluate the current staff configuration in line with our strategic goals and thoughtfully consider next steps.”

PAFA announced in January that it would be phasing out its bachelor’s and master’s degree programs by the end of the 2024-25 school year and bringing back its former certificate program. This month it closed its historic Furness and Hewitt-designed building at Broad and Cherry Streets, just north of City Hall, for a yearlong replacement project of the HVAC system.

Even as work proceeds in the Furness building, exhibitions continue next door in the Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building. “Layers of Liberty: Philadelphia and the Appalachian Environment” runs through Nov. 3.

From July 18 to Dec. 1, PAFA hosts an exhibition from the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel University that includes more than 600 items covering 350 years of Philadelphia history.