SYRACUSE, NY.- The Syracuse University Art Museum has received a significant gift of more than 25 works by 16 artists from the collection of Nancy Delman Portnoy. A New York-based collector, gallerist and educator, Delman Portnoy's collection focuses on artists addressing political and social issues across a wide range of media. She has held board positions at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School. The gift was facilitated by Syracuse University alumna Liz Tenenbaum ‘98.

The donation transforms the museum’s holdings in lens-based media and broadens its representation in painting and contemporary voices. Highlights of the gift include works by Rashid Johnson, John Waters, Shimon Attie, David Goldblatt and Abel Barroso.

Johnson’s “Green Belt” (2009), a large-scale photograph of the artist’s father wearing a newly awarded taekwondo belt and seated against a bookshelf with a CB radio perched on it, offers a nuanced portrait of a soon-to-be-father’s self-exploration during the social upheaval of the 1970s.

"Rashid Johnson is one of the most incisive artists working today, and this early photograph encapsulates so many of the ideas he has explored throughout his career — Blackness, family, home life, community, literacy and access to sport,” says curator Melissa Yuen. “The wide-ranging conversations that a single work of art can encourage is the hallmark of what we do at Syracuse. We aim to acquire works that spark conversations across disciplines, and this incredible gift further develops our vision for the collection.

The gift also includes eight works by filmmaker and artist John Waters, whose photography draws from and recontextualizes iconic film imagery. The works by Waters present opportunities for collaboration with campus programs in film and media arts.

Other works turn a creative lens on histories that happen on local, neighborhood levels. Shimon Attie’s “Lasers Writing Out (in Yiddish) Jewish Senior’s Sleeping Dream” (1998) is part of his celebrated public art project which used animated laser projection to inscribe the personal and collective memories of immigrant residents onto the architecture of their neighborhood on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

David Goldblatt’s “Sunset over the Playing Fields of Tladi, Soweto, Johannesburg, August 1972”, (1972) photographed during the apartheid era, is a striking example of Goldblatt’s commitment to documenting everyday life in apartheid South Africa. Goldblatt’s photograph is currently on view at the Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery in New York City as part of the exhibition “New In: Recent Acquisitions at the Syracuse University Art Museum” through June 4, 2026.

The gift advances the museum’s commitment to a collecting philosophy that fosters interdisciplinary teaching and research across the Syracuse University, with particular focus on programs and institutions that include Light Work, the Department of Film and Media Arts in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

“This gift is transformative — for our collection, and for the students and faculty who learn with it. When a collector of Nancy Delman Portnoy's vision chooses to place works at an academic museum, it reflects a deep belief in the power of art to educate,” says Syracuse University Art Museum director Emily Dittman. “These artists speak directly to the interdisciplinary, socially engaged teaching that defines Syracuse University, and expand our ability to teach across disciplines in meaningful ways.”