Art of the State, open to Pennsylvania artists and craftspeople, is an annual juried exhibition held at The State Museum of Pennsylvania. With an established tradition of exhibiting highly creative art chosen by a distinguished panel of jurors, Art of the State provides an opportunity for both established and emerging Pennsylvania artists to exhibit their art and receive statewide recognition.  

Presented by The State Museum of Pennsylvania in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation, the 57th Art of the State exhibition will offer cash awards for selected entries in the categories of Painting, Work on Paper, Photography & Digital Media, Sculpture and Craft.  

The fee is $30 for up to 4 works of art.  

FINAL DATE TO SUBMIT ENTRIES: Friday, May 3, 2024, 11:59 PM

Entry assistance will be available by e-mail and phone from 8:30 AM until 4:00 PM Monday through Friday. 

The exhibition will be open from Sunday, September 8, 2024 until Sunday, January 5, 2025.

CATEGORIES  

Craft: Functional or decorative three-dimensional craft in any synthetic or natural media.  Fiber arts are included in this category.

NOTE: Artists can only submit one image for each work. Artists with three-dimensional work may be asked to submit additional views. 

Painting: Two-dimensional painting media including oil, acrylic, watercolor, encaustic, fresco, ink & wash, pastel, gouache and spray paint, painted on a two-dimensional surface.   

Photography & Digital Media: Traditional and digital photographs, photographs printed on metal, and time-based media.  Photographs printed on foam core will not be accepted. A.I.-generated art will not be accepted to the 2024 exhibition. NOTE: Artists are required to provide a media player, speakers, and screen for exhibition display purposes for digital works.  Media should be programmed to play on a continuous loop. The media player should be equipped to start automatically, and to start and play when and if power is lost and returns.   

Sculpture: Three-dimensional carved, molded, applied or constructed techniques using wood, glass, plaster, metal, stone, plastics, clay, soft or hard materials, found objects or natural materials. May include high and low bas relief, installations, kinetic sculpture and assemblage.  

NOTE: Artists can only submit one image for each work. Artists with three-dimensional work may be asked to submit additional views. 

Work on Paper: Two-dimensional works specifically created on paper, includes drawing, collage, etching, lithograph, woodblock, screen print, serigraph, calligraphy, computer art on paper, graphic art, digital art print, digital collage, monotype, cut paper and pastel.   

 AWARDS  

A First Place Award of $500, a Second Place Award of $300 and a Third Place Award of $200 will be distributed in each of five categories.  

Additional Awards 

William D. Davis Memorial Award for Drawing: $250  

The State Museum Art Docents’ Choice Award: $300 

TIMELINE  

September 8, 2024- January 5, 2025: Exhibition dates

Friday, January 12:  Entry process open

Friday, May 3: Last day for submissions (no late entries accepted)

Week of June 17: E-mail notifications of juror results

July 13 – 21:  Art delivery

Sunday, September 8:  Reception and awards ceremony

Sunday, January 5, 2025: Exhibition closing

January 18-26, 2025: Art Retrieval

JURORS  

Selection Jurors will review all art submitted. Those with the highest ratings will be featured in the exhibition. Selection jurors include:   

Selection Jurors

Marc Jacobson

Professor Emeritus

Herron School of Art + Design, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis

herron.iupui.edu/about/directory/profiles/jacobson-marc.html

 A Wisconsin native, Jacobson studied painting and drawing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. After graduating with a BFA, he took classes in Reims, France, rode a scooter around the country and worked in a champagne bottle factory. Jacobson returned to Milwaukee to work and paint, eventually returning to UW-M for graduate study. In 1990 he moved to Indianapolis for a position at Herron School of Art and Design, where his teaching received several awards. Jacobson’s paintings have been exhibited in numerous exhibitions over the past 40 years, including in solo shows at at StorageSpace Gallery in Indianapolis, Allen Sheppard Gallery in New York, Columbia College in Columbia MO, and Jan Cicero Gallery in Chicago.  Group exhibitions include at the Museum of Fine Arts of Florida State University, Zolla-Lieberman Gallery in Chicago, and DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. The Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis; Cummins in Columbus, Indiana; and Fidelity Investments are a few of the many collections which include his work.

Jennifer-Navva Milliken

Executive Director and Chief Curator

Museum for Art in Wood

museumforartinwood.org 

Jennifer-Navva Milliken is the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Museum for Art in Wood. At the helm of this dynamic and unique art museum, she works to enfold contemporary issues into the museum’s wood-focused approach, balancing traditional study of craft practices with contemporary artistic concepts and global experiences. Milliken studied for her BA in Art History at Western Washington University and her MA in Art History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Throughout her international career, she has curated dozens of exhibitions for museums, galleries, and unconventional spaces. Before joining the Museum for Art in Wood in 2018, she worked as an independent curator and consultant following her tenure as Curator of Craft and Design and interim curatorial director at the Bellevue Arts Museum [BAM] in Seattle, Washington, US. Prior to joining BAM, she established INTER ALIA projects, a curatorial enterprise that fostered dialogues surrounding contemporary art, studio craft, design, and new media through site-specific pop-up exhibitions, gallery programming, writing, and advocacy for artists practicing in these fields. She has been an embedded staff member at several cultural institutions and museums, among them the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), New York, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

Eric Sung

Artist and Professor of Art/Photography

Providence College

https://art.providence.edu/studio-art/eric-sung/ 

Eric Sung is an artist scholar and cultural worker.  His creative vision has materialized multiple interdisciplinary ideas into action with a diverse group of stakeholders. Sung’s experiential scholarship and companion works have appeared internationally in peer-reviewed and juried conferences and venues, including the Society for Photographic Education (SPE), International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA), and Imagining America (IA)

Sung’s artworks have been showcased in internationally renowned exhibition venues and public spaces.  His art and community empowerment projects were supported by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities (RICH), Providence Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism (ACT), and Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA).

Sung is a Full Professor at Providence College and was appointed as the founding director of a cutting-edge program in Business and Innovation in 2018.  Currently, he is a member of the WARP Collective Artists Group and serves on the Board of Directors of the Society for Photographic Education.  

An awards juror will select recipients in each of the categories. 

Jim Toia

Artist and Curator

Executive Director, Karl Stirner Arts Trail

Director, Community Based Teaching, Lafayette College

jimtoia.com

Jim Toia generates work by exploring environments around the world, but his primary studios are in Northwestern New Jersey and the Florida Keys. He sought the hills, valleys and river basins of NJ as both refuge from the metropolitan area and its proximity to the New York art world where he exhibited with the Kim Foster Gallery for over two decades. When in Key West he spends time peering into the straits of Florida searching out life below. Toia received his BA from Bard College in 1984 and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in1993.

His work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and the Far East. The many collections that own his work include the Yale Museum of Art, the NJ State Museum, the AT&T Collection, and the Dallas Museum of Art and Stanford University to name a few. He is the recipient of many grants and awards including a 2000 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship and a Geraldine Dodge Foundation Grant.

Along with his art making process, Toia has been an active curator since his early years as an artist. He is currently co-curating the traveling exhibition, Post-Post Human which will be on view in Manhattan at Bravin Lee Projects space @ 526 West 26th St. in March, 2024. In addition, Toia is the executive director and chief curator of the Karl Stirner Arts Trail in Easton, PA.

 

ABOUT US    

The State Museum of Pennsylvania is adjacent to Pennsylvania’s State Capitol building in Harrisburg. It offers exhibits and vast collections interpreting the state’s heritage, art, and natural history. The State Museum is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), the Commonwealth's official history agency.   

The Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation (PHF) supports the work of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission who collects, preserves researches, and interprets the treasures of Pennsylvania. Through private contributions, PHF helps PHMC protect and provide access to PHMC's 23 historic sites and museums, approximately 5 million objects, and 237 million archival items. Pennsylvania’s valued heritage is sustained through PHF.  

CONTACT   

Amy S. Hammond, Curator | Art of the State Project Director  
The State Museum of Pennsylvania   
300 North Street, Harrisburg, PA 17120   
Phone: 717-772-2840 Email: amhammond@pa.gov   

Application Requirements

Application Requirements: Artists must submit an artist statement and resume. 

Eligibility Criteria

COMPETITION RULES  

Eligibility   

1. Artists must be current residents of Pennsylvania and 18+ years of age.  

a. Work must have been created within the past (3) years (January 2021- May 2024).  

b. Size is limited to 12 feet x 12 feet, 150 lbs. in all categories. 

c. The work must be of the Participant’s own original concept and execution. The work must be legally compliant with intellectual property law. If, for instance, the work contains copyrighted material, the work must be a fair use of the copyrighted material. If the work contains the copyrighted materials of others, the Participant must secure all permission prior to submission and furnish them upon request.   

d. All work must be freestanding and/or ready to hang. The reverse side of two-dimensional paintings, photographs and works on paper must have a wire or D-rings for hanging.   

e. All entry applications must be uploaded to Competition website.  

f. All entry applications must include an insurance value of each work submitted. If the work is for sale, the artist may submit a purchase price for each work. No insurance value may exceed the sale price.   

2. The State Museum reserves the right to reject any work from the competition or withdraw any award distinction.   

3. No substitutions are permitted.   

4. A panel of three selection jurors representing various media will assign numeric scores through the online entry site. The art with the highest scores will be included in the exhibition. An awards juror will review the work and make the award selections.   

5. All artists will be notified by e-mail of the judging results. Details for delivering or shipping of those works selected for the exhibit at The State Museum will be included in the notice. The artist may be responsible for installation of art if special conditions exist. The State Museum encourages the sale of exhibited work and does not take any commission. The museum collects information from interested buyers and connects the potential buyer to the artist.  Payment must be arranged between artist and buyer.  Art will not be available for pick up until the exhibition closes.  

6. Awards are selected by the Awards Juror after accepted art has been installed at The State Museum. Award recipients will be contacted prior to the awards ceremony and are asked to refrain from making their own announcements prior to the reception.  

7. Awards:  A first place award of $500, second place award of $300, and third place award of  $200 will be provided for each of the five categories (Painting, Sculpture, Craft, Works on Paper and Photography/Digital Media). The William D. Davis Memorial Award for Drawing in the amount of $250 and the Art Docents’ Choice Award of $300 may be presented. The State Museum may select a Purchase Award by choosing a work for its permanent collection.  

8. Refunds will not be issued after the close of the submission process.