Opening December 2, “New Acquisitions 2006” highlights works of art acquired by the Portland Museum of Art since late 2005, celebrating the gifts, purchases and bequests that have enriched the museum’s collection during that time.
This annual winter exhibition, on view through February 18, features more than 30 works in a variety of media including paintings, photographs and works on paper.
Contemporary prints were a major highlight of the museum’s collecting activity in 2006, with works by internationally known artists Francesco Clemente, Jim Dine, Anish Kapoor, Robert Stackhouse, Pat Steir, and others entering the collection as gifts. A group of these prints, as well as two drawings by Dale Chihuly, better known for his studio glass pieces, will be on view in the first-floor elevator lobby, demonstrating the innovation and graphic power that living artists apply to works on paper.
On the fourth floor, the exhibition continues with a selection of works in a variety of media. As always, photography figured prominently in the museum’s acquisitions, with the purchase of important prints by renowned photographers Gertrude Kasebier and Paul Strand. These photos, all of which are connected to the state of Maine through their subject matter, were purchased through the generosity of donors to The Photography Fund.
Numerous gifts brought additional photographs into the collection, including differing views of Maine life in the early 1900s by Lewis Hine and Minnie Libby, contemporary landscape prints by Jack Ledbetter and Terrell Lester, and early views of Monhegan Island by Samuel Peter Rolt Triscott. One of Triscott’s luminous watercolors was also purchased for the collection, augmenting the museum’s holdings of this Nineteenth Century landscapist’s work in various media.
Other painters associated with Maine are also featured, including Philip Barter, Mark Baum, and Lina Burley. Elsewhere in the museum, new acquisitions of paintings by Charles Codman (1800–1842) and John Walker (b 1939) enhance the museum’s permanent presentation of both Nineteenth Century and contemporary art. The Codman and the Walker paintings were all purchased, in part, with the support of the Friends of the Collection.
The museum is downtown at Seven Congress Square. For information, 207-775-6148 or www.portlandmuseum.org.
