Art museums continue to become increasingly important to colleges and universities, Colby College in Maine announces a gift of 1150 works from artists as wide ranging as Vincent van Gogh and Ai Weiwei.
The Washington Post’s Geoff Edgers details the gift:
The gift, to be announced Friday by Colby, comes from a familiar source, Peter and Paula Lunder, collectors with strong ties to Maine and the college. In 2013, Colby’s museum opened a $15 million space to house a significant collection of the hundreds of works given by the couple. The new donation, which includes money to endow a new study institute, is valued at more than $100 million.
The Portland Press Herald has some of the details:
Works by American artists include those of Mary Cassatt, John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, Albert Bierstadt, Winslow Homer and William Merritt Chase. John Marin, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, George Bellows, Rockwell Kent and Alex Katz also are featured. The museum also includes Greek and Roman antiquities, European drawings and prints, and early Chinese art.
The Lunder gift includes paintings, sculpture, photography and works on paper dating from 1501 to 2014 and representing than 150 artists, a Colby news release said. Artists represented include Cassatt, Vincent van Gogh, James McNeill Whistler, Jasper Johns, Nina Katchadourian, Jacob Lawrence, Maya Lin, Joan Mitchell, Claes Oldenburg, Betye Saar, Rembrandt, Ai Weiwei and Fred Wilson.
Benefactors give Colby College art museum a gift worth $100 million (The Portland Press Herald)
Picasso, LeWitt and 1,150 works are part of more than $100 million gift to Colby art museum (The Washington Post)