MAY 2003

LACMA ACQUIRES MAJOR WORKS OF ART THROUGH THE
GENEROSITY OF 2003 COLLECTORS COMMITTEE

Collectors Committee event raises more than $1.1 million toward works of art 

LOS ANGELES—The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) recently acquired four major works of art for its permanent collection through the generosity of the museum’s 2003 Collectors Committee. On April 26th, members of the Collectors Committee selected and purchased works recommended by LACMA curators for the departments of Prints and Drawings, Ancient and Islamic Art, Japanese Art, and Modern and Contemporary Art. Promised gifts and pledges were also made toward the purchase of four additional works of art. In all, purchases and pledges totaled $1,180,000. 

“I am extremely gratified and honored to announce the addition of these extraordinary works of art to LACMA’s permanent collection, further enriching the museum’s newly formed Centers of Art,” said LACMA President and Director Andrea Rich. “The Collectors Committee’s ongoing commitment to the preservation of our cultural legacy for the people of Los Angeles represents a generous spirit and a profound devotion to the arts.”

Since its inception in 1986, the Collectors Committee has made many important additions to LACMA’s encyclopedic holdings, giving nearly $8.6 million toward the purchase of more than 115 major works of art. This year 46 members participated in the decision-making process, acquiring important works of art from Asia, Europe, and the Americas representing approximately 600 years of art.

Highlights of the acquisitions include:

• Chest of Drawers, mid-Edo period, 18th century. Made by the artist Yamamoto Shunsho, this lacquer chest demonstrates a startling variety of techniques and materials. Its splendor and size indicate that it was a Daimyo dogu (made for the collection of a feudal lord). In addition, the storage box is inscribed onsoba tansu, or “chest for personal use by His Lordship,” indicating the special place this object held among the lord’s possessions. 
  
• Vessel with Hummingbird, Mexico, Oaxaca, Zapotec, 1300–1500. One of only two known examples of a courtly Mixteca-Puebla style drinking cup with a hummingbird on its rim, this vessel is composed of highly conventional symbols characterized by an almost geometric precision in delineation. The rare royal drinking cup reflects the primary artistic and cultural concerns of Zapotec civilization.
  
• A Flowering Cactus: Heliocereus Speciosus, 1831. This magnificent watercolor on vellum by Pierre-Joseph Redoute appears to have been intended as a completely independent work in which exactitude and the pictureseque are intermingled. The work is signed and dated, a practice Redoute reserved only for his most elaborate and complete works of art.
  
• With Hidden Noise, conceived 1916, fabricated 1964. One of the two most influential artists of the 20th century, Marcel Duchamp heavily impacted the art world with his conceptual art. This sculpture of brass, twine, copper, and an unknown concealed object is one of his celebrated Readymades and is one of only two artist’s proofs for this edition (the other remains with Duchamp’s family).

The mission of the Collectors Committee is to expand and diversify LACMA’s permanent collection. Members contribute a minimum of $10,000 annually to the committee, which is pooled to purchase significant works of art for the museum. Each spring members gather for an all-day event that begins with a viewing of the proposed pieces for each of LACMA’s curatorial departments and presentations by curators about these pieces. The day concludes with a gala dinner, when the committee members vote by ballot on those works they consider most important for LACMA’s collection. 

Individuals seeking membership information for the Collectors Committee should contact Suzanne Stern at (323) 857-6578.

About LACMA
Established as an independent institution in 1965, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has assembled a permanent collection that includes approximately 100,000 works of art spanning the history of art from ancient times to the present, making it the premier encyclopedic visual arts museum in the western United States. Located in the heart of one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world, the museum uses its collection and resources to provide a variety of educational, aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural experiences for the people who live in, work in, and visit Los Angeles. LACMA offers an outstanding schedule of special exhibitions, as well as lectures, classes, family activities, film programs and world-class musical events.