New Mexico Museum of Art unveils latest donated masterpieces

By April MacIntyre Jan 24, 2010, 3:56 GMT

Francis Bacon, Triptych, 1977, color etching and lithograph, 24 7/8 x 43 1/4 inches. Gift of Herb Beenhouwer, 2008.

New Arrivals: Works from the Collection is an exhibition of recent acquisitions to the Santa Fe's New Mexico Museum of Art's permanent collection.

The generosity of the New Mexico Museum's gifting patron has added invaluable assets to the Museum's collection.

Works from the new Collection will be on view for the first time featuring favorite New Mexico artists such as Susan Rothenberg and Gunnar Plake, among others, to the internationally recognized Francis Bacon and Roy Lichtenstein.

Approximately twenty-five works will be exhibited in nearly all media (including a skateboard by Artemio Rodriguez).

New Arrivals: Works from the Collection opens at the New Mexico Museum of Art, Friday, February 12, 2010 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

A reception will be hosted by the Women's Board of the Museum of New Mexico.

Exhibition curator Katherine Ware, curator of photography at the Museum, said in a statement; "The permanent collection is at the core of everything we do here at the Museum. It is especially wonderful, through the generosity of our community of donors, to share these treasures with the public for whom we hold these works in trust."

The focus of New Arrivals: Works from the Collection will be contemporary works donated to the permanent collection. Work from other eras will be shown, such as Milton Rogovin's photographs of New York City's Lower East Side and a William Lumpkins landscape, Untitled (Red Butte), 1933.

Museums rely primarily on donations of artwork from various sources as acquisition funds are always limited. A highlight of this exhibition and these donations is that these works deepen the Museum's collection of art of the Southwest and more specifically art by New Mexico artists while broadening the permanent collection with works by artists such as Francis Bacon.