Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
Drawings for the Menil Drawing Institute
The Menil Collection has announced two major gifts of Modern and contemporary drawings to the Menil Drawing Institute, which is due to open in September 2017. Trustees Janie C. Lee and Louisa Stude Sarofim each promised 55 drawings to the collection. The gifts include 15 works by Jasper Johns that span seven decades of his career. The institute is due to publish the catalogue raisonné of Johns’s drawings in 2017.
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Ancient Roman head
The J. Paul Getty Museum plans to reunite its newly acquired Roman marble head with the body of the sculpture to which it once belonged. The seven-foot statue of an older patrician woman dates to the late second century and was published intact in the 19th century. But by the time the Getty purchased the body in 1972, the head had been removed. The acquisition, bought from a New York dealer, “provides a rare and serendipitous opportunity to reunite the two parts”, says Timothy Potts, the director of the Getty Museum. The figure is due to be displayed in the reinstalled Getty Villa, on the city’s western outskirts, in 2018.
Arts Council Collection, UK
Contemporary British art
As the Arts Council Collection celebrates its 70th anniversary, it announced that 47 new acquisitions by 23 artists joined the 8,000-strong loan collection of Modern and contemporary British art in the past year. The works, available for loan to UK public institutions, include Bedwyr Williams’s kitsch, shell-encrusted barbecue sculpture, The Burn (2012). The Arts Council has also commissioned eight new works by artists including Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Katie Paterson, Keith Piper and Ryan Gander.
