Gordon W. Bailey Gives 46 Works to Pérez Museum Miami

Daniel Pressley, The Lone Mourner, c. 1960, oil on canvas. Collection Pérez Museum Miami, gift of Gordon W. Bailey. Photo: Gordon W. Bailey Collection

L.A. collector Gordon W. Bailey has given 46 works by self-taught artists to the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Pérez director Franklin Sirmans, formerly a curator of contemporary art at LACMA, organized the 2014  LACMA show “Sam Doyle: The Mind’s Eye,” drawn from Bailey’s collection.

In the past few years Bailey has donated groups of works—primarily by self-taught African-American artists from the South—to LACMA, the California African American Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the High Museum of Art (Atlanta), and the Speed Art Museum (Louisville). The Pérez donation is one of the larger groups, including works by Leroy Almon, Thornton Dial, Sam Doyle, Roy Ferdinand, Clementine Hunter, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Herbert Singleton, and Purvis Young.

Bailey promised a group of works to LACMA for its 50th anniversary in 2015 and has donated additional works since. He gave 32 works to CAAM in 2018.

UPDATE. The Pérez will showcase selections from the 60 works Bailey has donated since 2016 in "What Carried Us Over: Gifts from Gordon W. Bailey," Sep. 12, 2019 to Apr. 25, 2020.

Sam Doyle, Ford, house paint on metal. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, gift of Gordon W. Bailey. ©  Photo Gordon W. Bailey Collection