Acquisitions round-up: an ‘exceptionally rare’ portrait of an enslaved person and two large-scale donations

Portrait of Frederick (around 1840) attributed to C.R. Parker

Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson

In April this enigmatic painting, one of just two known portraits of individuals enslaved in pre-emancipation Mississippi, sold for $508,750 when it appeared at Neal Auction Company, New Orleans. The sitter, Frederick, was enslaved by the plantation owner Haller Nutt, and his portrait has hung in the Nutt family’s Longwood mansion in Natchez since the late 1860s. “Frederick has become the stuff of legend for Confederate apologists and tourists,” says the historian Katy Morlas Shannon. “Most of what has been said about him has been invented—either in an effort to explain why he was chosen to be painted or to whitewash a brutal past.” The portrait has now been jointly acquired by the Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The work is “exceptionally rare as a portrait of an enslaved person depicted independently of white subjects,” says MMA’s creative director, Chase Quinn.

Du und ich (you and I, 1919) by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Germany

Du und ich by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff is one of 42 works by the German artists’ group Die Brücke that have been donated by the entrepreneur and collector Hermann Gerlinger to Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz. The donation includes works by Schmidt-Rottluff, Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Gerlinger has been donating his collection of more than 1,000 works to museums since 2022. He writes that he first came across Die Brücke works as a student: “With my meagre monthly allowance, I acquired the first prints by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.” Du und ich, a highlight of the Chemnitz donation, is a marriage portrait of Schmidt-Rottluff and his wife.

Mat Black Mat 170 x 380 (2022-23) by Suki Seokyeong Kang

Ewha Womans University, Seoul

The family of Suki Seokyeong Kang has donated around 400 works to Ewha Womans University, where the late Korean artist previously studied and later taught, before she died from cancer in April 2025 at the age of 48. Kang worked across painting, performance, sculpture and installation, with an abiding interest in questioning the role and position of the individual within society. One of the works donated is Mat Black Mat 170 x 380, an installation of three large-scale mats inspired by Korean woven reed mats called Hwamunseok that are used in traditional court dances. The work was most recently exhibited at Art Basel Unlimited 2025 by Tina Kim Gallery.