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Get matched →In 1939, a group of 26 women formed the Old York Road Art Guild to share the arts with everyone through monthly talks, exhibitions, and art classes. As the group grew, they expanded to offer museum and studio trips, citywide art contests, art books for local libraries, and scholarships for art students. By the 1960s, the Guild became a non-profit organization and advocated for the Township to accept Edith and Lessing Rosenwald's gift of Alverthorpe Manor, where the Art Center has resided since 1970. Since then, Abington Art Center has renovated the manor and grounds to include an event pavilion, outdoor stage, and sculpture park.
In the early 1800s, Joshua Francis Fisher purchased several small farms to create his country estate, Alverthorpe. When the property was bought by Lessing Rosenwald, Fisher's Italianite villa was razed, but the stone folly, bridge, stone wall, and 1836 Quaker meetinghouse remain. The current Manor, designed by Ernest A. Grunsfeld, is an art-deco-inspired, 52-room mansion built in 1939 for Lessing J. Rosenwald, son of Julius Rosenwald, part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company.
Lessing Rosenwald believed in sharing what he acquired and gave unprecedented access to his collection at Alverthorpe Manor, personally guiding scholars and art students. In 1943, he announced he was collecting for the nation and pledged his collection to the Library of Congress and National Gallery of Art. The Rosenwald Collection is one of the world's platinum collections and includes over 2,600 rare books, 22,000 fine art prints and drawings, and a supporting references library of over 5,000 volumes, featuring works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, William Blake, Honoré Daumier, Paul Gauguin, and Pablo Picasso.
The Rosenwald Foundation, through Lessing Rosenwald, continued Julius Rosenwald's commitment to accessible education. Julius Rosenwald partnered with Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee Institute to fund more than 5,000 schoolhouses, teachers' homes, and industrial training workshops across fifteen southern states from the 1910s through the 1960s, serving over 600,000 students.
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