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EBTH is honored to present the collection of renowned educator, arts advocate, and civic leader, Dr. Constance E. Clayton. Dr. Clayton was the first female and first African American Superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia, overseeing the country’s sixth largest school district and its 24,000 employees from 1982-1993. She was also a patron of the arts, serving as a Trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she founded the African American Collections Committee and spearheaded the exhibitions Treasures of Ancient Nigeria and Represent: 200 Years of African American Art. Perhaps her greatest legacy is the donation of her significant collection of African American art to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2019 – including works by such artists as Henry Ossawa Tanner, Richmond Barthé, Augusta Savage, Laura Wheeler Waring and more – which were featured in the 2020-2021 exhibition Awakened in You: The Collection of Dr. Constance E. Clayton.
Dr. Clayton was a lifelong educator who began her career as a teacher in Philadelphia’s public schools before earning her PhD from Penn State and, later, EdD from the University of Pennsylvania. A testament to her achievements in education, she was the first African American woman to receive a named professorship at an Ivy League university when the University of Pennsylvania endowed The Constance E. Clayton Professorship in Urban Education in 1992, among her many other awards and accolades.
Dr. Clayton was also a lifelong collector – of art, fashion, antiques, crystal, china, linens, Chinese arts, and beyond. She and her mother, Willabell, owned a fashion boutique and antiques shop in the affluent Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia and filled the historic home they shared with their favorite finds. Her hand selected pieces are now offered in this and several subsequent sales only at EBTH!
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