The National Gallery of Art’s Board of Trustees recently announced acceptance of a number of new acquisitions, augmenting the collections of paintings, sculpture, works on paper, and photographs. These new works included a collection of 169 photographs by Robert Adams hand-selected by the artist; the Gallery’s first watercolor by Thomas Moran; its first paintings by Giorgio Vasari and Hendrik Willem Mesdag; a newly attributed portrait drawing by Michael Sweerts; and a major sculpture by Barry Le Va. “There are a good number of ‘firsts’ in this exciting round of acquisitions, ranging from Giorgio Vasari’s larger-than-life paintings of Saint Luke and Saint Mark and Thomas Moran’s extraordinary watercolor Mountain of the Holy Cross, to Barry Le Va’s post-minimalist sculpture,” says Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. “We are also pleased to add an important group of gelatin silver prints of America’s changing landscape by Robert Adams, which joins the Gallery’s major holdings of works by fellow luminaries of American photography such as Alfred Stieglitz, Robert Frank, and Harry Callahan.” The board also received news that Mrs. Paul Mellon has released her life interest in eight works to the Gallery: William Merritt Chase (1849–1916), Gathering Autumn Flowers (1894/1895), oil on canvas; Winslow Homer (1836–1910), East Hampton Beach, Long Island (1874), oil on canvas, and Three Fisher Girls, Tynemouth (1881), pencil and watercolor; Eastman Johnson (1824–1926), Lambs, Nantucket (1874), oil on board; Odilon Redon (1840–1916), Village by the Sea in Brittany (c. 1880), oil on cardboard laid on masonite; Georges Seurat (1859–1891), Seascape (Gravelines) (1890), oil on panel; Eugene Boudin (1824–1898), Crinoline sur la plage de Trouville (c. 1865), watercolor; and Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), Verre, as de trèfle et poire coupée (1914), collage, charcoal and gouache.
Urban Art & Antiques 