Art and Nature Thus AlliedFall 2015 / Issue I / CXIIIShortly after Parrish Hall opened its doors on rolling farmland in 1869, nearby Philadelphia was busy enhancing its fledgling Fairmount Park with statuary. Nearly a century later, Swarthmore began acquiring its own outdoor sculptures, coinciding with a resurgence of interest in the subject in Philadelphia. As the city passed a landmark law requiring a percentage of building budgets to support public art, large-scale, abstract sculptures proliferated.