Amy Ferracci, Neighbor

Housed across two nineteenth-century stone mansions on ten acres in Chestnut Hill, Woodmere is dedicated to the art and artists of Philadelphia.

Charles Knox Smith Hall and its grounds, together with the core of the collection, are the gifts of Charles Knox Smith (1845–1916). Born of humble means, Smith eventually built a successful mining company and served on Philadelphia’s Common Council (the precursor to today’s City Council). In 1898, Smith purchased the estate known as Woodmere and began transforming it into a showcase for his art. With the belief that the experience of art and nature together offer a path to spiritual beauty, Smith welcomed his first visitors to Woodmere in 1910.

The Museum continues to honor his vision with WOW, Woodmere’s Outdoor Wonder, which brings together monumental outdoor sculpture, horticulture, environmental conservation, and education. For almost forty years, from the early 1940s through 1978, Woodmere thrived under the leadership of Edith Emerson, who, along with her life partner, the artist Violet Oakley, brought women artists into the collection.

In 2025, Woodmere expanded with Frances M. Maguire Hall for Art & Education, which added fourteen new galleries, a children’s art and education studio, and new public spaces for events and programs—encompassing seventeen thousand square feet of interior space and four additional acres of preserved green space. Just steps from Woodmere’s original Charles Knox Smith Hall, Maguire Hall extends the Museum’s mission to celebrate Philadelphia’s artists by showcasing previously stored and newly acquired artworks. Highlights include galleries dedicated to Philadelphia’s distinctive schools of American Impressionism, Modernism, Mid-century Abstraction, and Figurative Realism; a new “vault” for the city’s historic Jewelry Arts; series by Violet Oakley and the Red Rose Girls; and galleries for works on paper.

Today, Woodmere is dedicated to collecting and showing work by the diverse spectrum of artists who make Philadelphia their home. Woodmere seeks to offer an increasingly inclusive dialogue in the arts through its exhibitions, programs, concerts, and events.

Woodmere is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, a distinction held by only approximately three percent of museums nationwide. On the National Register of Historic Places, Woodmere is designated a significant structure that contributes to the historic character of the Chestnut Hill Historic District.