The National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC, has acquired around 190 works since March of this year, stretching across several media, styles, centuries and continents. These include a 17th-century crucifix painting by María Josefa Sánchez, colonial Latin American art, woodblock prints by T.C. Cannon, the museum’s first Ben Shahn painting, a major Wifredo Lam work and a collection of photographs by Lillian Bassman and Paul Himmel.
Many of the acquisitions mark the first time an artist’s work has entered the NGA’s collection. Among the newly represented artists are the French Impressionist Marie Bracquemond and the American contemporary artists LaToya Hobbs, Stacy Kranitz, Lorraine O’Grady, Lehuauakea, Jordan Ann Craig and Christina Quarles. Quarles’s painting Turn Around, Don’t (2024)—now on view at the NGA—was one of her only finished works to survive the Los Angeles wildfires that destroyed the artist’s Altadena house and studio last year.
Marie Bracquemond’s Marguerite (around 1874) Courtesy the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
“Spanning over five centuries, our latest acquisitions provide new opportunities to engage with major artistic innovations by offering new points of entry into the practices of both established and lesser-known artists,” NGA director Kaywin Feldman said in a statement. “The historical breadth of these works reflects our commitment to expanding the scope of our collection by showcasing artistic excellence across time periods.”
The acquisitions greatly expand the NGA’s Latin American holdings. One of the oldest objects joining the collection is a rare 17th-century Mexican batea, which was once likely used to decorate an elite Spanish colonial household. (It was made around the same time that María Josefa Sánchez created her crucifix painting, also acquired by the NGA, across the ocean in Spain.)
Wifredo Lam’s L'esprit veillant (The Watchful Spirit) (1944) Courtesy the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
From the 18th century, a work by the Guatemalan painter Tomás de Merlo has now entered the NGA’s collection. And from the 1940s, Wifredo Lam’s painting L’esprit veillant (The Watchful Spirit) brings with it a celebration of Black spiritual culture across Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas. Contemporary artists with roots in Latin America represented in the new acquisitions include María Elena González, Ángel Rodríguez-Díaz, David Antonio Cruz and the Salvadoran artists Verónica Vides, Walterio Iraheta, Beatriz Cortez and Simón Vega.
“These newly acquired works reflect the kaleidoscopic breadth of art of the Americas and beyond,” E. Carmen Ramos, the NGA’s chief curatorial and conservation officer, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to introduce to our collection this series of significant works that collectively demonstrates innovative historical developments and ongoing contemporary practices. This group of acquisitions expands many facets of our growing collection, particularly in the fields of modern art, contemporary painting and colonial Latin American art.”
