BROOKLYN MUSEUM ACQUIRES NINETY-SIX WORKS BY FEMALE ARTISTS
The Brooklyn Museum in New York has announced that it has added works by ninety-six female artists to its collection. The pieces were acquired in conjunction with the institution’s recent series of programming celebrating women. “A Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism at the Brooklyn Museum” marked the tenth anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
Director Anne Pasternak said that the works, which span from antiquity to the present day, were part of a concerted effort to broaden the institution’s historic narratives. Many of the pieces were showcased in the exhibition “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85” (2018), including Beverly Buchanan’s Untitled, 1978, a cast-concrete sculpture that is part of her “Frustula” series; Betye Saar’s Liberation of Aunt Jemima: Cocktail, 1973; and Emma Amos’s Flower Sniffer, 1966.
Other artists whose works were acquired through a gift or purchase by the museum are Eleanor Antin, Andrea Bowers, Judy Chicago, the Guerrilla Girls, Harmony Hammond, Marilyn Minter, Miriam Schapiro, Joan Snyder, Nancy Spero, Jana Sterbak, Athena Tacha, Betty Tompkins, Adejoke Tugbiyele, June Wayne, and Martha Wilson.
Commenting on the achievement, Elizabeth A. Sackler said, “I would like to thank the dozens of people who participated with me in the acquisition of the ninety-six works for the benefit of the Sackler Center and the Brooklyn Museum as a whole.”
“A Year of Yes,” which kicked off in October 2016 and ran through early 2018, used feminist art as a starting point to showcase underrepresented artists and expand the art historical canon. Exhibitions organized for the event included shows dedicated to trailblazing artists such as Judy Chicago, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Marilyn Minter, and group shows such as “A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt” and “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85.”
