Museum acquisitions

Developer’s $325m gift will help create new museum in Seattle

Richard Hedreen is donating a collection valued at $300m and $25m cash to create an art museum at Seattle University

Baltimore Museum of Art acquires its first piece of performance art

The performance by Jefferson Pinder is one of more than 100 new acquisitions recently announced by the institution

When Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ was bought by the National Gallery it was snubbed as one of its top 100 acquisitions of the decade

Omitted from the 1920s book, next September the masterpiece will star in a London blockbuster on Vincent’s art of Provence

US National Gallery of Art receives its first works of Haitian art, via two gifts

The 15 works, donated by two collecting couples, will form the core of an exhibition in autumn 2024

Collectors Marilyn and Larry Fields make ‘landmark gift’ of 79 works to MCA Chicago

The gifted works are predominantly by woman-identifying and Bipoc artists, including pieces by Huma Bhabha, Arthur Jafa, Adrian Piper, Jennie C. Jones and Cindy Sherman

SFMoMA acquires more than 100 works by artists with disabilities

The acquisitions mark a new partnership between the museum and Bay Area non-profit Creative Growth Art Center; the museum also acquired works from Creativity Explored and Nurturing Independence through Artistic Development

Tibetan Buddhist shrine with more than 200 artefacts donated to the Minneapolis Institute of Art

The shrine comes from Alice S. Kandell, who amassed one of the most significant private collections of Tibetan Buddhist art in North America

Portrait of Omai? What about bringing Henry VIII’s epic tapestry back to the UK, says British businessman

The piece by Pieter Coecke van Aelst remains in Spain but Jonathan Ruffer wants to show it at his new Faith Museum in County Durham

Baltimore Museum of Art acquires LaToya Ruby Frazier installation honouring community healthcare workers

The installation spotlights health workers that helped underserved communities in Baltimore at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic

SFMoMA acquires architectural capsule from Tokyo's famed Metabolist tower

Architect Kisho Kurokawa's Nakagin Capsule Tower was demolished last year, but 23 of its distinctive pods were preserved

Hans Arp’s estate gifts 220 sculptures to ten museums around the world

Many of the gifted works will go to European institutions, while others are bound for Boston, Dallas and Melbourne

San Diego's museums of art and photography will merge

The Balboa Park cultural mainstays will form one institution, effective 1 July

The oldest Hebrew Bible in existence breaks auction record for a manuscript at Sotheby's

The price for the Codex Sassoon surpassed the sum Bill Gates paid for a Leonardo da Vinci codex in 1994

A series of recent lawsuits could change the way UK museums acquire works for their collections

Disputed attribution claims rarely play out in court, but two recent legal cases could provide valuable lessons for acquisitions teams at cultural institutions across the UK

Seattle Art Museum receives 48 Calder works and $10m from former Microsoft president and his wife

The trove of works from Jon and Kim Shirley includes many mobiles and stabiles, and comes with a commitment to fund ongoing programming on the artist

Major Bill Traylor painting that previously belonged to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright is gifted to the American Folk Art Museum

The painting, which belonged to the late playwright Lanford Wilson, was donated to the museum by his Circle Repertory Company co-founder, Tanya Berezin

Acquisitions round up: the Met acquires 16th-century portrait of pope's banker

Our pick of the latest gifts and purchases to enter institutional collections worldwide

London to get free, permanent David Bowie display as Victoria and Albert Museum acquires archive

Costumes, albums, lyrics and videos from 80,000-strong collection will go on show at the V&A East Storehouse from 2025

Paris's Centre Pompidou breaks new ground by acquiring 18 NFTs

The acquisition, the first of its kind by a major French public museum, includes works by Jonas Lund, Robness, Agnieszka Kurant and Sarah Meyohas

Mysterious NFT collector—who may actually be the rapper Snoop Dogg—gifts 22 blockchain works to Lacma

Pseudonymous NFT collector Cozomo de’ Medici gives Los Angeles County Museum of Art "largest collection of its kind in a US museum"

Acquisitions round up: Art Institute of Chicago acquires Magdalena Abakanowicz's horsehair wall hangings

Our pick of the latest gifts and purchases to enter institutional collections worldwide

SFMoMA acquires its first NFT, a work by tech art pioneer Lynn Hershman Leeson

The museum is one of the most prominent to date to acquire a blockchain-backed digital artwork for its permanent collection

New York's Frick Collection acquires its first-ever Renaissance portrait of a woman

According to the museum, the portrait by Giovanni Battista Moroni is “the most significant Italian Renaissance painting” it has acquired in more than half a century