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| Catherine Opie, Sixth Street Bridge, 2022/2024. Hammer Museum. Purchased through the Board of Advisors Acquisition Fund with additional funds provided by Curt Shepard and Alan Hergott, and Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy |
This year the Hammer Contemporary Collection added star works by Los Angeles and global artists, including Catherine Opie's luminous pigment print photograph of downtown's Sixth Street Bridge. The biggest acquisition news was the Mohn Art Collective (MAC3). As announced in August,
Jarl and Pamela Mohn donated a 260-piece collection of contemporary L.A. art to the joint ownership and management of the Hammer, LACMA, and MOCA. The Mohns supplied an endowment, and the Hammer dedicated 80 works it had collected from "Made in L.A." biennales to the collective. MAC3 has acquired at least 16 works from "Made in L.A. 2023," including Guadalupe Rosales'
Untitled (Quetzalcoatl).
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| Guadalupe Rosales, Untitled (Quetzalcoatl); Donde el cielo se une con el mar, 2023. Purchased with funds provided by the Mohn Family Trust |
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| Nairy Baghramian, Scruff of the Neck (AP), 2016. Purchased with funds provided by Susan and Larry Marx, in honor of Ann Philbin |
Separately, the Hammer Contemporary Collection added numerous works by purchase and gift. One is
Nairy Baghramian's 11-ft.-wide construction of cast and polished aluminum, plaster, beeswax, and rubber. Evoking dental work and vulnerability, it's a gift in honor of departing Hammer Museum director Ann Philbin from Susan and Larry Marx. |
| Alison Saar, Stubborn and Kinky, 2023. Purchased through the Board of Advisors Acquisition Fund |
Alison Saar's
Stubborn and Kinky will go on view at the Hammer Jan. 18, 2025, in
a 3-sculpture installation with pieces by Jennifer Boland and Mona Hatoum.
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| Chris Johanson, Untitled, 2023. Purchased with funds provided by the Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis A. Roach and Jill Roach Directors |
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| Carlos Almaraz, Untitled (in the beginning), 1970. Purchased through the Board of Advisors Acquisition Fund |
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| Marjorie Cameron, Sun Horse, 1952. Gift of Barbara Guggenheim Patricof and Alan Patricof |
The buzz for Cameron continues to build, despite the fact that few museums own her works. Sun Horse is an early oil-on-board painting, and it's the Hammer's first piece by the artist.
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| Edouard Manet, Dead Toreador, about 1867-1868. Etching. Grunwald Center Collection, purchased with funds provided by the Helga K. and Walter Oppenheimer Acquisition Fund |
The Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts added several choice European prints, thanks to the Oppenheimer Acquisition Fund. Among them are two tragically recumbent visions of death, separated by nearly three centuries.
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| Hendrick Goltzius, Pieta, about 1596. Grunwald Center Collection, purchased with funds provided by the Helga K. and Walter Oppenheimer Acquisition Fund |
Comments
This is also a wonderful way for museums to bear both the benefits of a fuller display of the art, and also the costs of the art's ongoing storage and preservation.
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I find one of the featured works in the posting especially lovely: Hendrick Goltzius's "Pieta," an etching in the second (final) state, in the Hammer collection. I loved especially how Goltzius shows Calvary in the upper-right quadrant, but also a barely noticeable Jerusalem to the left of Jesus' fallen right arm. Classic detail.
I wondered where I could find his etching in the first state. Not at the Met, evidently. It's got the second-state version, like the Hammer's. But the Art Institute of Chicago has one in the first state [I believe], based on my purely untrained eye...AIC doesn't bother to include such key information on its website, a clear lapse in museology. Any road, the AIC version conveys a more tender image of the agonizing Madonna, and the sky is less horrifically dark.
Following is the link for the AIC version:
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/77854/pieta