PHILADELPHIA, PA.-The Rosenwald Wolf Gallery at The University of the Arts was among seven cultural organizations awarded a total of $651,650 in exhibition and planning grants. This project has been supported by a grant from the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts.

The UArts grant for $200,000 will be used to produce the exhibition and catalog for Beyond the Surface: Women and Pop Art 1958-1968 to be shown in Philadelphia from January through March 2010. This major exhibition – the first of its kind – will examine the impact women have had on the traditionally male-dominated field of Pop Art and include works by Vija Celmins, Chryssa, Niki de Saint Phalle, Rosalyn Drexler, Marisol, Dorothy Grebenak, Jann Haworth, Kay Kurt, Lee Lozano, Marjorie Strider, Idelle Weber and Joyce Weiland. The show is scheduled to travel to Tufts University in the spring of 2010 with several other venues pending.

I am delighted to be able to bring this project to the Philadelphia community and beyond,” said Sid Sachs, UArts Director of Exhibitions. “In a year that has brought the exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the opening of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center at the Brooklyn Museum and Rosalyn Drexler’s first one-person exhibition at Pace-Wildenstein, this is a propitious time to reevaluate women’s position in art history.”

According to the PEI Web site, Beyond the Surface will “expand the narrowly defined Pop Art movement and reevaluate its critical reception. In recovering important female artists, the show will enlarge the canon to more accurately reflect the women working internationally during this period.”

Other major PEI exhibition awards were given to The John Bartram Association for Bartram's Travels Revisited ($171,650) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art for William Kentridge: Ten Tapestries ($150,000).