The gallery offers paintings that cover a century of the region’s history and the changing surrounds. By 1850, there were artists actively depicting life in the city and the impact of the rivers to the region. Not long after, a group of artists would make trips to outlying areas to capture nature before man’s intervention. The most frequented being Scalp Level, an area outside Johnstown that became an annual summer pilgrimage for the artists and their students. As the 20th century arrived, a growing number of artists began to focus their eye back to the city. With the explosive expansion of steel mills lining the rivers in and around Pittsburgh, industrial scenes offered a dramatic contrast to the previous studies of nature.

Throughout all of these periods, the area artists often relied on portraiture to sustain themselves. With an emerging number of industrialists, came a large pool of potential sitters looking to capture their likeness for posterity.

Another constant was the artists’ study of still life. Regardless of influence and changing styles, some of the artists would concentrate their efforts on still life and today several are still identified with tabletops of fruit, floral and game subjects.

In addition to dozens of Western Pennsylvania artists’ paintings, the gallery also exhibits sporting and other American paintings from the late 19th and early 20th century.