Purchase Party featuring American Illustration
November 12, 2026 · 5:30 PM · The Reading Public Museum, 500 Museum Road
About the event
The Reading Public Museum's Purchase Party hands the collecting decision to the people in the room. Guests vote on which work of art will join the permanent collection, a tradition the Museum's curatorial staff began in order to open up a choice usually made by directors, curators, and committees. Candidate works travel to Reading and are displayed for the evening, with advocates making the case for each one before ballots are counted and the winner is announced.
This edition centers on American illustration, the storytelling art of magazine covers, advertisements, and book pages that shaped how the country pictured itself. It pairs naturally with Rockwell/Wyeth: Icons of Americana, the fall exhibition in the second floor galleries, which looks at how Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth built full size paintings that were later scaled down for print.
The evening brings catered appetizers, wines from a private cellar, and contemporary harp music by Linda Umstead. Guests receive Mengel Voting Dollars to put behind the pieces they most want to see hanging in Reading for years to come.
Hosted by Reading Public Museum on BerksConnect.
