The National Gallery of Art announced a wide-ranging group of recent acquisitions, adding more than 200 works to the nation's art collection.
Acquisitions across media expand key areas of the National Gallery's collection and create opportunities to forge new art historical connections through exceptional works by leading artists across time and regions.
Highlights of the acquisitions include a major work by French academic painter Jules Breton that was recently featured in the exhibition Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment, a monumental sculpture by American abstractionist Richard Hunt that will be installed in the Sculpture Garden, and an array of works by celebrated contemporary artists, including Graciela Iturbide, Nicolas Party, Kay WalkingStick, William T. Williams, and others.
"The National Gallery's acquisitions advance our commitment to artistic excellence by allowing us to continually expand the depth and breadth of our collections," said Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art. "The exemplary works entering our collection showcase new dimensions of major artistic traditions from the 18th century to the present, in American art and beyond. We are grateful to the many donors who have enabled these gifts to the nation."
The recently acquired works, which enter the collection through a combination of gifts and purchases, will offer the National Gallery's audiences new ways to engage with artistic achievement, innovation, and the exchange of ideas throughout art history. Many of the recent acquisitions bring artists into the collection for the first time; others build on the National Gallery's holdings of works by particular artists or movements in meaningful ways. The museum's first work by a female artist associated with the Hudson River school, Elizabeth Gilbert Jerome, is a significant addition to its holdings of 19th-century American landscape paintings, while a triptych arrangement of Niagara Falls by Native American artist Kay WalkingStick and a fantastical work by Swiss painter Nicolas Party create contemporary throughlines with the landscape tradition. Other works exemplify themes, such as the iterative nature of the creative process, different approaches to abstraction, various documentary practices, and experimentation with new media.
"The National Gallery continually seeks to add perspectives and depth to our collection across time, place, and media, identifying artists and works whose contributions will enable us to expand how we tell the living history of art," said E. Carmen Ramos, the National Gallery's chief curatorial and conservation officer. "This grouping brings together major historical works by artists including Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, Jules Breton, and Elizabeth Gilbert Jerome alongside recent work by living artists including Graciela Iturbide, Nicolas Party, and William T. Williams, who are continuing to advance the field of contemporary art."
Main Image: Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida Isabelita and Thor, 1893