Museum Created New Departments and Curatorial Roles, Mounted Wide-Ranging Exhibitions, and Strengthened Collection with Significant Acquisitions and Gifts
Dallas, TX—January 31, 2020—The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) continued to strengthen and expand its exhibitions and educational programming and team in 2019 with the creation of two new departments and curatorial positions, the presentation of major exhibitions, and the acquisition of significant works across its collections. In conjunction with the Museum’s strategic plan and through a series of transformative gifts, the DMA established new departments of Latin American art and of works on paper, reflecting the Museum’s focus on diversifying the illustration of artistic influence and dialogue across the world and throughout time, and on deepening the representation of the culture and history of the DMA’s local and national communities within its collection. The Museum also added significant works to its collection, including year-end gifts from 12 donors of 178 works in contemporary art, sculpture, painting, textiles, and the decorative arts.
“The DMA has had some truly incredible milestones in 2019 that have laid the groundwork for years to come,” said the Museum’s Eugene McDermott Director, Dr. Agustín Arteaga. “Through the extraordinary support and leadership of visionary donors and partners, we have taken unprecedented steps to strengthen and expand the DMA’s impact on our audiences—having served over 900,000 people in 2019 exhibitions and programs that reflect the range of artistic dialogue around the world.”
In 2019, the DMA significantly expanded its commitment to Latin American art through a group of extraordinary gifts to the Museum. Established with a major gift from Dallas entrepreneur and civic leader Jorge Baldor, The Jorge Baldor Curatorship of Latin American Art is a newly created position whose purview encompasses art from North America, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, from the viceregal to the modern centuries. Dr. Mark A. Castro was selected in August as the first curator to serve in the new role.
In tandem with building the DMA’s curatorial expertise in this area, the Museum’s Latin American art collection was bolstered through the Stanley and Linda Marcus Endowment for the Acquisition of Latin American Art. Established with an extraordinary $1 million gift from Linda Marcus in her name and that of her late husband, Stanley, the new fund builds on the Marcuses’s incredible history of support for the Museum and their particular interest in the arts of the Americas and Latin America. In addition to these endowments, five works of art joined the DMA’s Latin American holdings through gifts by Baldor, as well as through The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc.; the de Unger family; an anonymous donor; and a promised gift from DMA trustees Nancy and Jeremy Halbreich.
Through an endowment and major gifts, the DMA additionally created a new department dedicated to works on paper, enabling the Museum to radically strengthen the exhibition and programming of its existing and growing works on paper collection and to study that collection in depth for the first time. The Works on Paper Department was founded in 2019 through the gift of the estate of DMA trustee and former curator William B. Jordan and his husband Robert Dean Brownlee, which provided significant funds to establish The William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee Endowment to support the department’s ongoing operations and programming. In tandem with this major gift, Allen and Kelli Questrom generously endowed the new position of The Allen and Kelli Questrom Curator of Works on Paper through a $3 million bequest to the Museum. To support the establishment of the new department, as well as the Museum’s collections and programming across its encyclopedic collection, Jordan and Brownlee also donated more than 80 works to the Museum, including 58 works on paper, as well as antiquities, 20th-century furniture, 19th-century oil paintings, ceramics, sculpture, and silver. Julien Domercq, the DMA’s Lillian and James H. Clark Assistant Curator of European Art, currently serves in the new role as the Museum’s Interim Curator of Works on Paper while an international search is conducted for the position.
In addition to the creation of these new departments and positions, the DMA continued to strengthen and expand its curatorial leadership in 2019 with the promotions of Sarah Schleuning to Interim Chief Curator, Fran Baas to Interim Chief Conservator, Sue Canterbury to The Pauline Gill Sullivan Curator of American Art, and Anna Katherine Brodbeck to The Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. As part of the DMA’s growing European Art department, Nicole R. Myers was promoted to The Barbara Thomas Lemmon Senior Curator of European Art, and Julien Domercq was appointed The Lillian and James H. Clark Assistant Curator of European Art. The contemporary art department was additionally bolstered by the hiring of Vivian Li as The Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art, bringing expertise in both contemporary and Asian art to the DMA. The appointment of an associate curator of contemporary art, one with a focus on internationally emerging and African-American and -diasporic artists, is forthcoming.
Serving more than 900,000 individuals onsite and offsite in 2019, the Museum mounted a series of major exhibitions across departments that offered audiences new perspectives and discoveries and contributed to art-historical scholarship. They include Dior: From Paris to the World, the first U.S. retrospective of the house of Dior and the Museum’s most highly attended exhibition of the decade; Berthe Morisot, Woman Impressionist, the critically-acclaimed international exhibition, co-curated by the DMA, exploring the legacy of this founding member of Impressionism; Not Visible to the Naked Eye: Inside a Senufo Helmet Mask, a unique collaboration between the DMA’s Conservation and Arts of Africa departments and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; and speechless: different by design, a groundbreaking exploration of the many ways in which we connect to the world around us through our senses, with multisensory, interactive, and immersive installations designed for visitors of all backgrounds and abilities.
In August, the DMA reopened its European art galleries after a total reinstallation, offering a fresh interpretation featuring works from the collection rarely shown previously that were restored for exhibition, a new presentation of Old Master paintings and sculpture, and Impressionist and Modern masterworks gifted by Margaret and Eugene McDermott to benefit the DMA. The final bequest of 32 nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artworks to the Museum prompted the reinstallation of the European art collection to integrate the McDermotts’s magnificent gift.
Bolstering the Museum’s exhibition program, a range of major new works entered the DMA’s collection in 2019, expanding the depth and range of opportunities for the Museum to illustrate art-historical narratives and create compelling juxtapositions across departments. In addition to the significant gifts of Latin American art and works on paper, the Museum acquired contemporary works by artists Matthew Barney, Mark Bradford, Janine Antoni, Bruce Nauman, and Jack Whitten; Impressionist and Modern paintings by Paul Gauguin, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Alexei Jawlensky; important works from the estate of William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee by Théodore Géricault, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Auguste Rodin, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Jackson Pollock , among others; modern and contemporary design objects from the estate of George R. Kravis and by Ettore Sottsass Jr. and Ron Arad; and a group of 178 year-end gifts from 12 donors.
Highlights among the Dallas Museum of Art’s acquisitions in 2019 include:
Janine Antoni (Bahamian, born 1964)
Caryatid (tall brown vessel with turquoise interior wash), 2003
C-print and broken vessel
Photograph: 91 x 29 ½ x 1 ½ inches
Vessel: 13 ½ x 11 x 13 ¼ inches
T44161.2
Gift of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky
Matthew Barney (American, born 1967)
Drawing Restraint 8: Drawing Restraint, 2003
Graphite, watercolor, and petroleum jelly on paper in rotomolded polycarbonate frames with nylon fiber, acrylic, and vivac
36 ½ x 62 x 41 inches
T44161.23
Gift of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky
Mark Bradford (American, born 1961)
Spiderman, 2015
Digital video with audio
Running time: 6 minutes 3 seconds
T44161.24
Gift of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky
Peter Doig (Scottish, born 1959)
Mal d’Estomac, 2008
Distemper on linen
119 ½ x 139 ½ inches
T44159
Gift of Marguerite Steed Hoffman
Sergej Jensen (Danish, born 1973)
Anni, 2003
Fabric ironed on linen
66 7/8 x 55 1/8 inches
T44161.16
Gift of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky
Jacob Kassay (American, born 1984)
Untitled, 2011
Acrylic on linen, oak, and silver
49 ¼ x 178 ¼ inches
T44161.17
Gift of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky
Bruce Nauman (American, born 1941)
Setting a Good Corner (Allegory & Metaphor), 1999
Video (20 from an edition of 40)
Running time: 60 minutes
T44161.21
Gift of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky
Jack Whitten (American, 1939–2018)
Slip Zone, 1971
Acrylic on canvas
39 x 39 inches
2010.26.1
(Gift is a 50% interest. DMA already holds title to the other 50%.)
Gift of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky
Jack Whitten (American, 1939–2018)
Epsilon Group I, 1976
Acrylic on canvas
42 x 42 inches
2010.26.2
(Gift is a 50% interest. DMA already holds title to the other 50%.)
Gift of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky
Alexei Jawlensky (Russian, 1864–1941)
Landschaft Murnau, 1909
Oil on cardboard
T44145.7
Gift of Cornelia and Ralph Heins in memory of Elinor Heins
Alexei Jawlensky (Russian, 1864–1941)
Zwei Elemente, n.d.
Oil on canvas
27 ½ x 23 ¾ inches
T44145.8
Gift of Cornelia and Ralph Heins in memory of Elinor Heins
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (German, 1880–1938)
Still Life with Lilies, 1917
Oil on canvas
31 ½ X 27 ½ inches
T44145.9
Gift of Cornelia and Ralph Heins in memory of Elinor Heins
Berthe Morisot (French, 1841–1895)
Harbor Scene (Isle of Wight), 1880
Watercolor on paper
Intended bequest of William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee
Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)
Seated Male Nude (recto), 1856-1858
Pencil on paper
Intended bequest of William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee
Nicholas Weddell (American, born 1994)
Carpet, 2019
Wool
48 x 48 inches
T44162
Gift of Marc Benda
Ettore Sottsass Jr. (Italian, 1917–2007)
Valentine Portable Typewriter, 1969
Plastic, enameled metal
4 × 12 15/16 × 13 1/2 inches
2019.2.2.A-B
Gift from the George R. Kravis II Collection
About the Dallas Museum of Art
Established in 1903, the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is among the 10 largest art museums in the country and is distinguished by its commitment to research, innovation, and public engagement. At the heart of the Museum and its programs is its global collection, which encompasses 25,000 works and spans 5,000 years of history, representing a full range of world cultures. Located in the nation’s largest arts district, the Museum acts as a catalyst for community creativity, engaging people of all ages and backgrounds with a diverse spectrum of programming, from exhibitions and lectures to concerts, literary events, and dramatic and dance presentations. With a free general admission policy and community outreach efforts, the DMA served more than 900,000 individuals onsite and offsite in 2019. The DMA is an Open Access institution, allowing all works believed to be in the public domain to be freely available for downloading, sharing, repurposing, and remixing without restriction. For more information, visit DMA.org.
The Dallas Museum of Art is supported, in part, by the generosity of DMA Members and donors, the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
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For more information, please contact:
Jill Bernstein, Director of Communications and Public Affairs
214-922-1802
JBernstein@DMA.org