JERUSALEM.- Over the past year, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem has seen significant growth across its encyclopedic collection with new acquisitions that give insight into the development of cultural and religious traditions, global art movements, and contemporary viewpoints from Israel and abroad. Totaling over 400 works spanning multiple continents and many centuries, highlights include an important group of Edo period scroll paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection; a rare example of an early Shiviti booklet, and a rare 19th century American map of the Holy Land. These acquisitions were joined by significant additions to the Museum’s contemporary holdings, including works by Ilit Azoulay, Rashid Johnson, Michal Rovner, Gilad Ratman, Paul Sepuya and a new permanent installation by Tracey Emin in the Museum’s Isamu Noguchi-designed Billy Rose Art Garden.

“Since joining the Museum as director in March 2022, I’ve collaborated with our staff to strengthen the Museum’s position as a cultural nexus where our local audience and international visitors can enter a dialogue around globally resonant ideas,” said Denis Weil, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum. “The recent gifts and acquisitions reflect this effort by enhancing the collection’s capacity for storytelling that connects people with history, culture, and universally important themes.”

Through the support of the Museum’s global Friends networks—international groups of patrons and friends committed to supporting the Israel Museum and its advancement—the Israel Museum acquired the following works:

- A selection of Japanese ink paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection (Edo period, 1603- 1868) created in the Zen painting tradition of using spontaneous brushwork applied in a single, precise stroke, the result of extensive practice and focus.

Gift from the Gitter-Yelen Collection, New Orleans and New York, to American Friends of the Israel Museum

- A selection of wood-carved African headrests, most from the late 19th – early 20th century, personal objects used during sleep to protect one’s elaborate hairstyle from damage.

Gift of Dr. Shalom Salomon Wald, Jerusalem

- A rare, decorated booklet form Shiviti (Central Europe, 18th century) presenting an elaborate opening page and outstanding combination of texts and prayers, the most lavishly example of shiviti represented in the collection.

Purchased through the gift of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation, to American Friends of the Israel Museum

- An extremely rare American wall map of the Holy Land by D. Haines of Philadelphia (1828), describing the most important events in the Old and New Testaments, from the receiving of the Tablets of the Law by Moses at Mount Sinai, the Exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt, to the Ascension of Jesus Christ from the Mount of Olives. The map was created in the tradition established by the 17th century Dutch family of cartographers,

van Doetechum, and depicts a panoramic bird's-eye-view of the Holy Land, divided among the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Gift of Sir Trevor and Lady Susan Chinn, London, through the British Friends of the Art Museum of Israel

- Francesco Guardi’s Capriccio with Ruined Arch (c. 1780s), a medium size landscape with architectural motifs that was labeled Capriccio due to its combination of the real and the imaginary in its depiction of a Venetian landscape, similar to the way capriccios were composed in music from the period.

Gift from Clarice R. and Robert H. Smith, Arlington, Virginia

- Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s Il Mundo Nuovo (The Peepshow) (c.1750s), a drawing depicting a diverse crowd of spectators gathered for a mysterious attraction.

Gift from Clarice R. and Robert H. Smith, Arlington, Virginia

- Ilit Azoulay’s Queendom (panel 4) (2022), presented at the 2022 Venice Biennale, in which the artist visualizes the afterlife of images and their transformations, accentuating histories of appropriation and missing links in their geographies of knowledge.

Purchase, "Here & Now" Contemporary Israeli Art Acquisitions Committee, Israel

- Tracy Emin’s The Mother (2017), a new monumental sculpture in the Museum’s Billy Rose Art Garden that explores the duality of women as heroic protectors and as vulnerable, sexualized beings.

Purchase, Edith and Ferdinand Porjes Foundation, Ruth and Joseph Bromberg Endowment, Wendy Fisher, London; and British Friends of the Art Museums of Israel

- Rashid Johnson’s Untitled Broken Crowd (2019), an abstract mosaic of distorted figures in which the artist contemplates the personal and collective impact of bearing witness to the confluence of crises affecting humanity.

The work was acquired in conjunction with Johnson’s video The Hikers (2019), part of an ongoing exploration into the currents of anxiety in this age of political and social turmoil.

Untitled Broken Crowd (2019) is a gift of Nancy and Joseph Chetrit, New York, Sarah M. Millett and Dr. Peter J. Millett, Edwards, Colorado, and Daniella and Joshua Rogosnitzky, Monaco, with additional support from Sandy Heller, New York, Barbara and Richard S. Lane, New York, Shawn and Peter Leibowitz, New York, and Barbara and Richard Rothschild, Palm Beach; to American Friends of the Israel Museum

The Hikers (2019) is a gift of Florence and Ralph Kattan, Switzerland, to American Friends of the Israel Museum

- Earth People (2021) by Michal Rovner, who was recently awarded the 2023 Israel Prize for Art. The piece is part of a recent series of video works addressing what the artist refers to as “the crisis of the landscape,” encompassing the urgent environmental unrest, challenges, and flux of the current moment.

Purchase, "Here & Now" Contemporary Israeli Art Acquisitions Committee, Israel

- Gilad Ratman’s Drummerrsss (2022), a multi-channel video installation capturing two drummers, one sunken and the other suspended from the sky, whose music serves as commentary on the constant collision of nation-state ideology with spiritual beliefs.

Gift of Leslie and Russ Robinson, Houston, with additional support from Susan and James Dubin, New York

- Paul Sepuya’s Daylight Studio Mirror (2021), which probes at the act of self-presentation and the dynamics between subject and object in photography.
Gift of Ellen S Shapiro, Jon A Shapiro, to American Friends of Israel Museum