The Association for Public Art remembers longtime trustee Philip Price, Jr. (1934-2023), who passed away in February at the age of 88. Price joined the Board in 1991, and generously supported a number of our projects as well as other nonprofit organizations in Philadelphia.
For generations, the Price family has been actively involved with this Association, formerly the Fairmount Park Art Association. Philip Price, Jr.’s father, Philip Price, was also a longtime trustee, as was his grandfather, Eli Kirk Price II, who played a substantial role in the development of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was Eli Kirk Price II who purchased the Albert Laessle Billy (1919) goat sculpture for Rittenhouse Square as a gift to the City through this Association; and the Eli Kirk Price Fountain on the Parkway, which our organization erected as a companion to the Ericsson Fountain, is named after him.
With a focus on preservation and family, Philip Price, Jr. funded conservation projects that include our restoration of the Major General George Gordon Meade sculpture by Alexander Milne Calder in Fairmount Park – a project he took special interest in as a descendent of General Meade. For the City of Philadelphia, he funded the restoration and recasting of the Billy sculpture, and the conservation of the Evelyn Taylor Price Memorial Sundial by Beatrice Fenton. That sculpture was created in honor of his grandmother, who was president of the Rittenhouse Square Improvement Association and the Flower Market Association. Price and his sister, Evie Taylor Scott, also funded our Museum Without Walls: AUDIO program for the Evelyn Taylor Price Memorial Sundial.
A descendent of General Meade, Price funded our 2013 restoration of the General Meade sculpture by Alexander Milne Calder in Fairmount Park. Photo by Caitlin Martin.
A lifelong Philadelphia resident, Price was an attorney and politician who served in the Pennsylvania State Senate from 1979-1982. He was also on the boards of Fairmount Park Conservancy, The Woodlands Trust For Historic Preservation, the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia, and The Ludwick Foundation, and served as president of the Allegheny West Foundation.
Read the obituary here.