Collecting America: Recent Acquisitions

For nearly a century, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art has provided students, faculty, and the broader community opportunities to connect with works of art across time periods and cultures. Initially founded in 1933 as an Asian art museum with the generous donation of Gertrude Bass Warner’s collection of over 3,700 works of art, the museum’s collecting interests have since broadened to artworks from around the world that provide even more opportunities for cross-cultural and curricular connections. JSMA began collecting American and regional art in the 1960s and now stewards work by artists from the United States, Mesoamerica, contemporary Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and other areas of the Caribbean and across the Americas. With our recent acquisitions, the museum aims to reflect the voices and experiences of diverse audiences and the new and evolving ideas, insights, and conversations presented by artists in work that both shapes and responds to culture.

Collecting America: Recent Acquisitions presents a selection of artworks from the museum’s permanent collection that demonstrate our commitment to understandings of American art informed by perspectives from local, national, and internationally recognized artists. Through various materials and practices, the featured artists demonstrate the great diversity of art made in or in response to the United States of America. These works invite viewers to participate in conversations on identity, place, politics, and other issues facing our world today.

This exhibition is organized by JSMA executive director Olivia Miller and curators Katie Loney, Danielle Knapp, and Thom Sempere, with graduate student interns Aidyn Dervaes, (MA candidate, History of Art and Architecture), Parisa Garazhian (MFA candidate, Studio Art), and Lorna Isaacson (MA candidate, History of Art and Architecture).