Year in Review: 2024 Additions to the Collection

Candy Darling on Her Deathbed (1973) by Peter Hujar

One of photographer Peter Hujar’s most celebrated works, Candy Darling on Her Deathbed combines the artist’s interest in states of rest and the specter of death. This rare print of the iconic photograph—made by the artist himself—joins the museum’s growing body of Hujar’s work as a pivotal example of his piercing portraits of members of New York’s artistic scene during the 1970s.

Reforma Agraria Posters (about 1968–73) by Jesús Ruiz Durand

Peruvian artist, designer, and educator Jesús Ruiz Durand was a leading proponent of the avant-garde movement known as pop achorado—Peruvian slang for rebellious, vulgar, or insubordinate—a graphic Pop style that used an indigenist lens to address some of the most pressing political topics in Peru during the late 1960s and ’70s. His 15 Reforma Agraria posters promote a governmental effort to secure a more just distribution of land, particularly for Peru’s Indigenous populations, and they expand our holdings of graphic design from Latin America.

A selection of Ruiz Durand’s posters are currently on view in Gallery 285.

Rose Bowl (1902) by Archibald Knox and Liberty & Co.

This one-of-a-kind silver rose bowl is the most ambitious work of the designer Archibald Knox. Born on the Isle of Man, Knox kept the Celtic ornament of the island at the center of his artistic practice, including in his designs for the famed London department store Liberty & Co. In its scale and in the sophistication of its enameled knotwork, the rose bowl exemplifies Knox’s bold marriage of a traditional Celtic vocabulary with a very modern and monumental form.

This bowl and other examples of Arts and Crafts design can be seen in Gallery 246. Additional examples of European silver will be on view when our redesigned Eloise W. Martin Galleries open this summer.

Hands Up … Don’t Shoot #2 (2024) by Carolyn Mazloomi

Using the United States flag as its foundation, the 2024 work Hands Up … Don’t Shoot #2 by artist, quilt scholar, and activist Carolyn Mazloomi reflects on the country’s violent history of slave labor as well as contemporary acts of police brutality against Black men. Part of her Black History Quilts series, the work showcases the power of American narrative quilts and strengthens our collection of contemporary textiles.

Chimera (1869) by Frederic Charlot de Courcy and Gustave Moreau 

Chimeras, imaginative beasts composed of disparate animal parts, were all the rage for artists of the 19th century, particularly those working in the style of Gothic Revival and Symbolism. This richly colored enamel on copper is the earliest and largest surviving product of a five-year collaboration between painter Gustave Moreau and enameller Frédéric Charlot de Courcy. It expands our narrative of collaborations between late 19th-century artists working in different media.

See it on view now near another striking depiction of a chimera, Sarah Bernhardt’s Self-Portrait as a Chimera (1880), in Gallery 223.

Tusk Hat (Ogut Tigo) (early 20th century), Luo; Kenya or Tanzania

This tusk hat, named for its fringe of warthog tusks, served as a powerful male status symbol to the Luo people who reside along the border between Kenya and Tanzania. The hat features irregularly shaped glass beads in dark blue, white, and red that were imported from Europe in the late 19th or early 20th century, making this a rare and exceptionally well-preserved beaded prestige headdress.

Find this important addition to our growing collection of African headwear in Gallery 137.

Four Paintings (about 1940–42) by Grandma Moses

Anna Mary Robertson Moses, also known as Grandma Moses, spent much of her adult life working on farms before taking up painting as a hobby in her late 70s. Her paintings drew inspiration from family stories, distant memories, and the rural upstate New York community where she and her ancestors lived. These four paintings—The Cambridge Valley, Home, Burning of the Troy Bridge, and Thanksgiving Turkey—represent some of her most iconic subjects.

Italian Renaissance and Baroque Prints (about 1515–1790s)

This acquisition of more than 200 Italian Renaissance and Baroque prints from the collection of celebrated scholar Jonathan Bober includes works by renowned artists—such as Agostino and Annibale Carracci, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Guido Reni, and Claude Lorrain—as well as rarer sheets. Both varied and comprehensive, the group complements and strengthens the museum’s holdings of Italian art from this influential period.

Native American Ceramics and Jewelry (1940s–present)

Collectors Peter and Elaine Liebesman generously gave our museum several works of American craft as well as an impressive group of Native American ceramics and jewelry that effectively have quadrupled our holdings of contemporary Indigenous art. Alongside other objects in the collection, these gifted works tell intergenerational stories that connect Native artistic traditions to innovative approaches by contemporary Indigenous makers.

Zanzibar / Gold #2 (1977) by Barbara Chase-Riboud

This sculptural work by Barbara Chase-Riboud is an exemplar of the artist’s trademark style, a blending of bent and flowing ribbons of bronze with tendrils of fiber. The captivating sculpture is the first work by the artist and author to enter the Art Institute’s collection and expands our presentation of works by female Black artists.

Find it on view now in Gallery 297.

Painted Fan with a Scene of the Hongs and Harbor of Canton (about 1845–60), China

This type of painted folding fan, commonly referred to as a Mandarin fan, was almost exclusively produced for export to the European and American markets. The front of this exquisite example features a landscape and scenes with figures in three vignettes, while the back shows families in an architectural setting. The steamboat with the American flag suggests that the fan was likely made sometime between 1845 and 1860, when the first American steamboat built by Robert Forbes and sailing for Russell & Co. was put into service between Canton and Hong.

Look for it beginning this September in Gallery 134.

Still Life Reviving (Naturaleza muerta resucitando) (1963) by Remedios Varo

Varo’s last painting and her largest work on canvas transforms the quietude of a traditional still life into a supernatural scene. Set in a Gothic tower, a table for eight begins to levitate, while above, apples, peaches, pomegranates, and strawberries orbit like planets in a solar system. The emergence of new life is a common theme of Varo’s work of the 1960s. Here, in addition to the seedlings sprouting up, the cloth itself seems animated. Everything flows into the vortex, except four mosquitos that look on warily as the fruits collide.

Still Life Reviving (Naturaleza muerta resucitando) is on view now in Gallery 396.

Topics

• Collection
• New Acquisition