Reading Public Museum

The Reading Public Museum is a museum in Reading, Pennsylvania, located in the 18th Ward, along the Wyomissing Creek. By the size and scope of its collection, numbering more than 280,000 objects and specimens, it is the largest private museum and largest collection of artwork, numbering over 50,000 works, located between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The museum's permanent collection focuses primarily on art, science, and cultural artifacts and its site also features the Neag planetarium and a 25-acre (100,000 m²) arboretum filled with rare plants and champion trees.

The Museum has a long history of innovative programming and exhibitions, including hosting major solo exhibitions and retrospectives for artists such as Alexandre Iacovleff (1947); Claude Venard (1969); Valfred Thelin (1969); Tetsuro Sawada (1970); Gloria Vanderbilt (1971); Marsden Hartley (1971); Robert Indiana (1983); Jimmy Ernst (1991); Liliana Porter (1993); Brigitta Bertoia (1994); Reuben Nakian, (1999); Dan Namingha (1991) and David Lynch (2003) among others. It was one of the first museums in the United States to exhibit, in 1937, the original cartoons and drawings of the noted animator and film executive Walt Disney (1901-1966); and was the very first museum in the world to both exhibit a work by and award a prize to the internationally recognized pop artist and Pennsylvania native, Keith Haring (1958-1990).