Carol Vogel was first with the story that Keith and Katherine Sachs have made a major donation to the Philadelphia Museum that Director Timothy Rub describes as putting the museum in the first rank of Contemporary art. The 97 works are led by artists Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden and Gerhard Richter and Vogel puts a market value of $70m on the gift:
“This museum has always been committed to contemporary art,” Mr. Rub said in a telephone interview. “Now, with the Sachs gift, we will have one of the best collections of contemporary art in the country. It’s transformative.”
The gift will fill crucial gaps in the museum’s holdings. There are, for instance, important video works by artists like Allora & Calzadilla, Francis Alÿs, Pierre Huyghe, Steve McQueen, Eve Sussman and Bill Viola, which Mr. Rub described as a “major step forward” for the museum. The collection also helps enrich holdings by artists it already owns, like Mr. Johns and Mr. Kelly. It significantly ramps up its representation of sculptures, too, with work by John Chamberlain, Donald Judd, Cy Twombly, Dan Flavin, Richard Serra and Robert Gober. The artworks include some by the hottest photographers around, including Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth and Hiroshi Sugimoto.
Philadelphia Museum Lands a Major Gift (Inside Art/NYTimes)
