Philadelphia Museum of Art cancels next year’s ‘premier show for American antiques and American decorative arts.’ Its future is unclear.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has put the Philadelphia Show on pause. The highly regarded antique, art, and design exhibition and fundraiser, won’t happen in 2026, the museum confirmed Tuesday.

Asked why the annual show had been pulled, Art Museum spokesperson Maggie Fairs said that the museum wanted to put its focus elsewhere next year.

“The Philadelphia Museum of Art is entering a landmark year in 2026, marking our 150th anniversary and participating in the national America 250 commemoration. To prioritize institutional resources and fully engage in these once-in-a-generation celebrations, a decision was made to pause the Philadelphia Show in 2026,” she said.

The 2025 edition of the Philadelphia Show, held this past April on the museum’s East Terrace, featured more than 40 dealers from Philadelphia, New York, London, France, Portugal, and across the U.S., according to the event’s roster, with decorative arts, antiques, fine arts, and jewelry represented.

Ron Rumford, director of Rittenhouse Square’s Dolan/Maxwell art gallery, which has exhibited at the show since 2012, said the exhibitors were informed in April that the planned celebrations would mean that the dates for the 2026 show “were in jeopardy.”

“We were told at the time that alternative venues were being considered. That was all that we knew,” said Rumford, who is a member of the show’s dealer committee.

The museum isn’t committing to the show returning in 2027.

All decisions about the future of the show “will be made thoughtfully in due course by all parties involved,” Fairs said.

She added that the decision to pause the show was made with committee members and board leadership, and that the museum will provide an update by the end of the year on what the future holds for the show.

She said that Sasha Suda, the Art Museum director and CEO, was not available for comment.

The event is a fundraiser for the Art Museum, though Fairs said she did not know how much money it raises each year. Proceeds benefited the museum’s education programs, allowing it to expand family programming and free and low-cost visits to the museum for Philadelphia School District students and educators, according to a letter from Suda in the 2025 show catalog.

“The problem with skipping a year,” Rumford said, “is you run the risk of losing the momentum of having an annual event that’s in the same place, same time, every year. People look forward to it as an audience.”

With the gap April 2026 leaves in the gallery’s calendar, Rumford said he has to think about alternatives. “If I theoretically pick an alternative, and I go to that show and do well, then [in 2027] I might have the conflict of saying, ‘Well, maybe I should not do the Philadelphia show, right?’ These things are big events, and the people that put them together work on them year-round.”

Previously called the Philadelphia Antiques and Art Show, the event began in 1962. In 2018, it began a handoff from being run by Penn Medicine to the Art Museum.

“This is a transitional moment,” said Timothy Rub in 2018, when he was head of the museum. “This show has been a Philadelphia tradition for a long time. Many people feel it has been the premier show for American antiques and American decorative arts, Americana, in the country. It’s a tradition worth extending.”

Others agree, and call the decision to now put it on pause “shortsighted.”

“Many people are shaking their heads as to why this could be a good idea,” said Patrick Bell, co-owner of Olde Hope Antiques in New Hope, which has exhibited at the show for about 25 years. While the show has evolved, “it has remained among the finest shows in the country, if not the world,” he said. And from its perch overlooking the city, “it is by far the most beautifully presented antique show in America.”

Said Rumford: “We want there to be a very high standard, high quality art fair in Philadelphia, and this is what we have. We will miss it next year, to be sure, and we hope it will be back in 2027.”

For him, in a world with globally franchised art fairs, the Philadelphia Show remains “small and special” even with its museum-quality exhibition.

“And I do worry that we’re living in a time where the small and very special are disappearing,” Rumford said.

Bell said that to not hold the show in 2026, the year of the country’s 250th birthday, “shows a lack of sensitivity about the importance of this historic year and what antiques and decorative arts history mean to the people of Philadelphia and America.”

This article has been updated with Ron Rumford’s comments and a revised quote from the PMA.

Staff writer Bedatri D. Choudhury contributed to this article.