Philadelphia Museum of Art announces a 'remarkable'gift
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Art collectors Keith and Katherine Sachs, who have amassed one of the finest collections of contemporary work in the country, will donate the vast majority of it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, transporting that institution into the front ranks of large museums with holdings of late-20th and early 21st-century art.
Museum director Timothy Rub called the gift of 97 works, to be announced Friday, transformational and placed it among the three greatest the museum has ever received.
"I'm delighted," Rub said in an interview. "This is an extraordinarily interesting and generous and thoughtful gift to the museum - a wonderful game-changer for us. So I'm as pleased as can be."
The Sachs collection, consisting of about 100 works, is rich in modern masters - Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly - and has a strong core of such minimalist artists as Carl Andre and Donald Judd.
Britain is well-represented, particularly in oil-on-wood paintings by Howard Hodgkin. German artists such as Joseph Beuys and Anselm Kiefer are prominent. And Americans Tony Smith, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Dan Flavin, Kiki Smith, Louise Bourgeois, and Jonathan Borofsky are represented by strong works.
The collection has a particularly prominent sculpture component, including stark outdoor pieces by Richard Serra and Scott Burton, and instantly recognizable work by John Chamberlain, Tony Smith, and Joel Shapiro.
There are large photographs by Jeff Wall and video pieces by Bill Viola.
"A really exceptional strength of the collection is Keith and Kathy's commitment to artists like Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns, and Howard Hodgkin," Rub said. "In some cases, certainly the first two I mentioned, we already have a very fine collection of their work. With the addition of works in the Sachs collection, these become great, great areas of depth for us, and that's really important. We think Kelly and Johns are exceptionally important artists and also central to the story of contemporary art both in this country and internationally."
In other instances, however, the museum lacks strength, Rub noted. "The Sachses have collected artists who we've not been able to acquire. Their collection fills significant gaps in ours and complements ours in significant ways."
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