The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) announces the acquisition of seven artworks through the museum’s annual Collectors Committee gala fundraiser on Saturday, April 21, including Robert Rauschenberg’s 1970 large-scale screenprint Currents, German Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer’s engraving Saint Jerome in His Study, a Louis Sullivan-designed elevator surround from the Chicago Stock Exchange Building, and more.
Louis Sullivan, Elevator Surround from the Chicago Stock Exchange Building, 1892, gift of the 2012 Collectors Committee, LACMA
Chaired by LACMA trustee Ann Colgin, Collectors Committee Weekend is one of the museum’s biggest fundraising events each year. All told, the seventy-nine members of the 2012 Collectors Committee raised $2.8 million for art acquisitions.
Before members could vote to acquire artworks using their membership dues, LACMA trustee Jamie McCourt purchased Speechless, from artist Shirin Neshat’s seminal 1993–97 series Women of Allah, for the museum. Later in the evening, Bruce Conner’s three-channel video work Three Screen Ray was purchased for the museum by Brad and Colleen Bell, Victoria Jackson and Bill Guthy, Jane and Marc Nathanson, and Steve Tisch. Collectors Committee members Irene Christopher and Scott M. Delman each generously contributed funds to a twelfth-century Japanese Buddhist sculpture known as Fudō Myōō: The Indomitable Foe of Evil. Two paintings by eighteenth-century New Spanish painter Nicolás Enríquez were acquired in part through funds donated by Kelvin Davis, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, Kathy and Frank Baxter, Beth and Joshua Friedman, and Jane and Terry Semel. Additional funds were contributed by Gail and Tony Ganz toward the Robert Rauschenberg artwork, and by Philippa Calnan toward the Albrecht Dürer engraving.
Artworks acquired through the 2012 Collectors Committee:
• Bruce Conner’s Three Screen Ray (1961/2006), a three-channel video based on the artist’s second film, Cosmic Ray of 1961, including fast-paced montages of the artist’s original footage juxtaposed with hundreds of images.
• German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dϋrer’s Saint Jerome in His Study (1514), a meticulous print engraving depicting the scholarly and spiritual reflections of Saint Jerome.
• Two oil-on-copper paintings by distinguished eighteenth-century New Spanish (Mexican) painter Nicolás Enríquez’ — The Marriage of the Virgin (1749) and The Adoration of the Kings with Donor (1741), each depicting scenes from the life of the Virgin.
• Shirin Neshat’s Speechless (1996), from the photography series Women of Allah, is a black-and-white photograph capturing the intense gaze of an Iranian woman whose face is covered with an inscription from a Persian poem.
• Robert Rauschenberg’s Currents (1970), a dense collage of newspaper clippings strewn across a sixty-foot expanse.
• An Elevator Surround from the Chicago Stock Exchange Building designed by renowned architect Louis Sullivan; the richly detailed iron frame demonstrates Sullivan’s creative adaption of natural materials.
• Fudō Myōō: The Indomitable Foe of Evil, a rare twelfth-century Buddhist sculpture carved from one solid block of Zelkova wood.
Since its inception in 1965, LACMA has been devoted to collecting works of art that span both history and geography and represent Los Angeles’s uniquely diverse population. Today, the museum features particularly strong collections of Asian, Latin American, European, and American art, as well as a contemporary museum on its campus. With this expanded space for contemporary art, innovative collaborations with artists, and an ongoing Transformation project, LACMA is creating a truly modern lens through which to view its rich encyclopedic collection.
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