THE SHIRLEY GORELICK FOUNDATION
BALTIMORE, MD.- The Baltimore Museum of Art announced today 33 new acquisitions made as part of its 2020 Vision initiative, which includes a commitment to only purchase works by female-identifying artists this calendar year. Among the highlights entering the collection are mixed-media sculpture and paintings by Theresa Chromati, Shirley Gorelick, Loïs Mailou Jones, Valerie Maynard, Betye Saar, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and Kay WalkingStick; works on paper by Camille Billops, Margaret Burroughs, Lea Grundig, Joyce J. Scott, and Zarina; and photographs by Laura Aguilar, Zackary Drucker (with A.L. Steiner), Nona Faustine, Martha Rosler, and Ming Smith. The BMA has spent $2.57 million adding 65 works to the collection by 49 female-identifying artists, including 40 who had not previously been represented at the museum.
In addition to the recent purchases made as part of 2020 Vision, the BMA has received an extraordinary gift of 35 works on paper from Baltimore-based collectors Frances K. and George Alderson, as well as gifts of works by Somaya Critchlow, Jadé Fadojutimi, Jerrell Gibbs, Adda Husted-Andersen, Tracy Miller, Daido Moriyama, Cassi Namoda, Betty Parsons, Pablo Picasso, Lieko Shiga, Lilly Martin Spencer, Anicka Yi, and those by unidentified artists from China, Japan, Tanzania (Sandawe and Nyamwezi cultures), and the Chokwe and Pende cultures in Central Africa.
“The new 2020 Vision acquisitions represent the widest-ranging group of works to enter the BMA’s collection yet, with objects produced through a spectrum of techniques and approaches and by artists of deeply varied backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. As we continue to develop our collection, we remain focused on rectifying critical omissions of works by artists who are also women, Black, Indigenous, and persons of color from across the diaspora, within our own holdings and across art history more broadly,” said Christopher Bedford, BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. “I am also grateful for the many gifts of art that have been given and promised to the museum and the ways in which they too amplify our ability to share narratives across time, geography, and genre. We look forward to developing exhibitions around these new acquisitions and to engaging our many audiences with them.”
• Shirley Gorelick. Double Libby II. 1971-72.
Shirley Gorelick (American, 1924-2000) was a prolific, yet under-recognized figurative painter working in the latter half of the 20th century. Double Libby II is a seminal painting from a series that reimagines the mythological genre of The Three Graces. Whether reclined on a velvet chaise or seated in a chair wrapped in a checkered textile, both instances of Gorelick’s intensely psychological portrait depict Libby as guarded and stoic. The painting—the first by the artist to enter the collection—expands the BMA’s holdings of historical feminist and figurative works from the 1960s-70s.
Other Recent Acquisitions:
Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, CT
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA
October, 29th, 2019
The Sister Chapel at Rowan University on on NJTV April 24, 2016:
Exhibition March 28–June 30, 2016:
click above poster to download full size PDF
