Displaying items by tag: donation

Until 2005, the 78-year-old Institute of Contemporary Art had no permanent collection, assembling most of its shows with borrowed works. Philanthropist and ICA board member Barbara Lee gave the museum one of its first pieces: British sculptor Cornelia Parker’s “Hanging Fire (Suspected Arson),” an ethereal work that has become a favorite of visitors.

Now Lee has given the ICA a much weightier gift: a group of 43 works by 25 international artists, all women. The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women, the institution’s largest gift of art ever, will expand the ICA’s holdings by roughly 30 percent, ICA director Jill Medvedow said.

The Clark Art Institute recently received the gift of a significant, rare commissioned portrait by Winslow Homer.

"Charles Prentice Howland" (1878), an oil painting that has never been publicly exhibited, was donated to the Clark by the sitter's granddaughter, Susan Montgomery Howell. The painting, which had remained with the family since 1878, is on view at the Clark.

"We are grateful to Susan Montgomery Howell and her family for giving the Clark this important, little-known painting, which will now be enjoyed by the public. I have long known Charles Prentice Howland's namesake, C.P. Howland, so it is a true delight that this wonderful connection has brought us together," said Clark Director Michael Conforti.

The Saint Louis Art Museum has received a $5 million gift from Barbara Taylor, president of the museum’s Board of Commissioners, and her husband Andy Taylor, chairman of the Missouri-based company Enterprise Holdings. The generous donation will fund a new sculpture garden, marking the end of a phased landscape plan created by Michel Desvigne. Desvigne, a Paris-based landscape architect, crafted the plan as part of a major expansion project at the museum, which included an addition by the British architect David Chipperfield. The Saint Louis Art Museum’s East Building opened to the public in June 2013 and a number of Desvigne’s landscape improvements have already been completed.

Construction is currently underway on the sculpture garden, which is located immediately south of the museum.

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has received an $8 million donation to endow the position of the museum's director and president.

The gift from the Duncan and Nivin MacMillan Foundation was given in honor of the museum's 100th anniversary in 2015. Kaywin Feldman has led the museum since 2008 and will be the first person to hold the newly endowed position.

To celebrate her 100th birthday, the long-standing benefactor of Frankfurt's Städel Museum, Dagmar Westberg, has donated Jusepe de Ribera's "St. James the Greater" (ca. 1615/16) to the museum's old masters collection. The painting is one of the most valuable and significant works by the Spanish painter.

Ribera (1591-1652) is widely considered as one of the most important 17th century artists. His painting style united aspects of two major European artistic schools. Although Ribera was born in the Spanish province of Valencia, he spent most of his life working in the Italian cities of Rome and Naples. Consequently, he is thought of as not only one of the most influential Spanish artists, but also one of the most important Italian baroque painters.

Two Pennsylvania museums have begun dividing more than 500 pieces of art bequeathed to them by the late Pittsburgh Tribune-Review publisher Richard Mellon Scaife.

Officials with the Brandywine River Museum of Art near Philadelphia met Wednesday in Greensburg with their colleagues at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art.

Scaife, the billionaire banking heir who died July 4 at age 82, willed the paintings to the museums. They divided more than 140 of the most sought-after works of art Wednesday by taking turns, and will divvy up the rest in the coming days.

Collector Michael Buxton announced on Wednesday that he will donate AUS$26 million to create a new contemporary art museum in Melbourne.

The donation includes $10 million worth of art from his impressive collection. The 300 works are by 53 major contemporary artists including Howard Arkley, Ricky Swallow, Tracey Moffat, Emily Floyd, Patricia Piccinini, and Bill Henson.

The Australian property mogul will also put forth $16 million to construct a new building for the gallery that will be called the Michael Buxton Centre of Contemporary Arts (MBCOCA).

Rodin donated most of the work he held to France in 1916, but a number of plasters were not included. Many years later, some of these were acquired by Gary Snell, a US businessman. Working with another firm, Gruppo Mondiale, Snell arranged the casting of a number of major sculptures in bronze from these plasters.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced Monday that it had received a major gift of 20th-century works by African-American artists from the South, including 10 pieces by Thornton Dial and 20 important quilts made by the Gee’s Bend quilters of Alabama.

The works, 57 in all, are being donated by the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, which was begun in 2010 by the scholar and collector William S. Arnett to raise the profile of art by self-taught African-Americans. Thomas P. Campbell, the Met’s director, described the gift, which also includes work by Lonnie Holley, Nellie Mae Rowe and Joe Minter, as a significant enlargement of the museum’s holdings of work by black American artists.

The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College has received a gift of 75 works of contemporary art from the collection of the computer programmer and philanthropist Peter Norton. This is the first in a series of gifts to university art museums and teaching museums throughout the country—drawn from Norton’s personal collection—to support the integration of the visual arts in higher education, foster creative museum practice, and engage diverse audiences with contemporary art.

Norton initiated his first large donation project in 2000, gifting over 1,000 pieces from his collection to 32 select institutions. His gift to the Tang Teaching Museum represents the inauguration of his second major donation project.