50 for 50: Gifts on the Occasion of LACMA's Anniversary

In 50 years Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) established itself as the largest and most diverse museum in the western United Stated with a collection of more than 12,000 objects.

In honor of LACMA's 50^th anniversary and with a focus of underscoring diversity, 50 for 50 presents magnificent artworks spanning several centuries and cultures, gifted or promised to all curatorial areas of the museum. The transformative gifts include African, French Baroque, Italian, neoclassical paintings, Spanish colonial, German, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, American pop art and works from 1960's LACMA founding point.

From the A. Jerrold Perenchio collection is the largest single gift of art promised in LACMA's history. Approximately 50 objects including 19^th century European Art and Masterpieces from the 12^th century. The majority, from 1870 to the 1930's, reveal significant stages of development of Modernism: Impressionism, Post-impressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. 
Of the 50 masterpieces, six are on view including works of Edgar Degas (At the Café-Concert: The Song of the Dog, 1875), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Jane Avril: Profile of a Woman, 1893) and Edouard Vuillard (Sacha Guitry in His Dressing Room, 1911), as well as Jean Baptiste Carpeaux's (1827-1875) Study for Dance (1865).

Showcased from the collection of Jane and Marc Nathanson, are works by Roy Lichtenstein (Interior with Three Hanging Lamps, 1991), James Rosenquist (Portrait of the Skull Family, 1962), George Segal (Laundromat, 1966-67), and Andy Warhol's seminal Two Marilyns (1962). 

Featured are also gifts promised from the collection of Lynda and Stewart Resnick, with masterpieces by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (The Virgin with the Host, 1860), the Medici court sculptor Giambologna, (Flying Mercury,
probably 1580s), and François Boucher's mythological (Leda and the Swan, 1742). Included is Christ Blessing (1480-85), the first Hans Memling to enter LACMA's collection and a crucial addition of one of the most important artists working in the late 15th-century Flanders.

Debuting in 50 for 50 is also Claude Monet's Two Women in a Garden (c. 1872-73), a future gift of Wendy and Leonard Goldberg; an African Serpent Headdress (possibly late 18^th century) sculpture made by the Baga peoples, Republic of Guinea, a promised gift of trustee Bobby Kotick; and Vija Celmins' seminal 1964 painting T.V., a gift of trustee Steve Tisch, marking the first painting by Celmins to enter LACMA's collection and joining Celmins' sculpture Untitled (Comb) (1970), acquired by LACMA in 1972.

Seldom represented in US museum collections are a stunning group of 5 rare Ethiopian crosses from the 12^th through 16^th centuries AD and their extraordinary linkages to Byzantium and early Christian communities of the Mediterranean.

Noteworthy are a Albrecht Dürer's Melencolia (c. 1514), the leading artist of the German Renaissance, Bernini's sculpture Portrait of a Gentleman (1670) a gift of The Ahmanson Foundation and, following Giotto's tradition, is Taddeo Gaddi's Crucifixion with the Madonna and Saint John the Evangelist (c. 1360), one of the most important painters in 14^th century Florence, a promised gift of Suzanne Deal Booth.

Pioneering Los Angeles artist DeWain Valentine's Red Concave Circle (1970), at the entrance of the exhibit, will also join LACMA's collection, thanks to the generosity of Bank of America, one of the sponsors of the 50 for 50 exhibition.

A number of large scale works and installations acquired in honor of the 50^th anniversary are on view throughout the campus: Robert Irwin's Miracle Mile (2013), Frans Snyder's Game Market (1630's) and Kiki Smith's Jersey Crows (1995) collection.

50 for 50 will be open to the public free of charge on the opening day, in honor of LACMA's 50^th Anniversary Free Community Day.

The exhibit runs from April 26, 2015 through September 13, 2015, at the Resnick Pavilion, at 5909 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit http://www.lacma.org/