WASHINGTON, DC.- The National Gallery of Art today announced the acquisition of significant new works, marking a meaningful expansion of the nation’s art collection. The acquisitions, spanning rare examples of devotional art, historical paintings, contemporary print multiples, and a noteworthy photography collection, showcase major artistic movements and innovative uses of materials across centuries.
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Notable among the additions to the collection are a suite of woodblock prints by T.C. Cannon; a 17th-century crucifix painting by Mara Josefa Snchez; a major work by Wifredo Lam, completed after his return to Cuba in the early 1940s; and a painting by Christina Quarles, one of the only finished works in her Altadena studio to survive the 2025 Eaton Fire in Southern California. Many of the acquisitions introduce important artists to the nation’s collection for the first time, including Marie Bracquemond, LaToya Hobbs, Stacey Kranitz, and Lorraine O’Grady. Others deepen the National Gallery’s existing collection, such as the first painting by social realist artist Ben Shahn and a major bronze sculpture by Fritz Scholder that reveals a new facet of the celebrated artist’s practice.
“Spanning over five centuries, our latest acquisitions provide new opportunities to engage with major artistic innovations by offering new points of entry into the practices of both established and lesser-known artists. The historical breadth of these works reflects our commitment to expanding the scope of our collection by showcasing artistic excellence across time periods,” said Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art. “These new additions further expand key areas of our collection, reflecting the vibrancy of artistic creation across centuries and geographies.”
These historical and contemporary works represent various artistic approaches to form and medium, including hard-edge abstraction and mixed media works that blur boundaries between art forms. Reflecting a depth in the medium of painting, the acquisitions encompass works from colonial Latin American painting on copper to a contemporary diptych rendered on barkcloth, illuminating key developments in the history and evolution of a medium central to global art history.
“These newly acquired works reflect the kaleidoscopic breadth of art of the Americas and beyond. We are thrilled to introduce to our collection this series of significant works that collectively demonstrates innovative historical developments and ongoing contemporary practices,” said E. Carmen Ramos, the National Gallery’s chief curatorial and conservation officer. “This group of acquisitions expands many facets of our growing collection, particularly in the fields of modern art, contemporary painting, and colonial Latin American art.”
Acquisition Highlights
Paintings
• Marie Bracquemond’s Marguerite (c. 1874) features a female protagonist from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Faust, demonstrating the artist’s use of a literary trope to reflect on the position of women in contemporary Parisian society. Considered one of the artist’s strongest works, the oil painting was presented at the National Gallery as part of Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment in 2024. Notably, it is the first major work by the artist to enter an American public collection.
• Jordan Ann Craig’s (Northern Cheyenne) Dainty Heart (2025) intricately weaves together Indigenous visual motifs, hard-edge abstraction techniques, and references to Cheyenne beadwork in a singular gridlike structure. This is the first work by the artist to enter the collection.
• Hugo Crosthwaite’s Mujer Toma Culebra (Woman Grabs Snake) (2024) draws inspiration from comic books, advertising, street art, and pre-Columbian mythology. Crosthwaite’s fantastical compositions depict scenes and people of the artist’s hometown of Tijuana, Mexico. This is the first work by the artist to enter the National Gallery’s collection.
• David Antonio Cruz’s Puerto Rican Pieta II (2006) is a self-portrait of the artist and his mother from the Jibaro series, an early body of work that explored Cruz’s queer and Puerto Rican identities through vibrant, multifigural compositions that often depict his close friends and chosen family. This is the first work by the artist to join the collection.
• Toms de Merlo’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c. 1730–1739) is a painting on copper by one of the most celebrated Guatemalan painters, which dates to the end of the artist’s life and employs a compositional model derived from Van Dyck’s Piet, combined with pictorial sources by Charles Le Brun and the artist’s own imagination. This is the first work by the artist to enter the collection.
• Wifredo Lam’s L’Esprit veillant (The Watchful Spirit) was created in 1944, following the artist’s return to his native Cuba where he found renewed inspiration. One of Lam’s most celebrated paintings, it evokes the enduring resilience of Black spiritual culture by fusing 20th-century artistic languages and cultural movements that emerged across Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas. On view in the East Building, it is the first painting by Lam to enter the collection.
• Lehuauakea’s (Kanaka ʻŌiwi) I Walk with My Ancestors (2023) is a diptych painted on Hawaiian kapa (barkcloth) that emulates traditional Native Hawaiian techniques dating back centuries. The artist used natural pigments—red ochre and wildfire charcoal painted on precisely formed sheets of paper made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree, or wauke—to honor the historical lineage of the art form. This is the first work by the artist to enter the collection.
• Olivier Le May’s View of Cap-Franais, Saint-Domingue (1787) is a rare example of 18th-century French marine and topographical painting applied to the Caribbean colonial world, depicting a panoramic view of the principal port of France’s most profitable Caribbean colony a few years before the Haitian Revolution. This work expands the museum’s holdings of 18th-century marine painting.
• Angel Rodrguez-Daz’s Antifaz: Forget the Alamo. Yellow Rose (2004) is an acrylic and oil painting that exemplifies the Puerto Rican–born artist’s interest in portraiture, combining incisive social commentary with a surrealism- and pop art–influenced style. The work adds to the National Gallery’s growing collection of contemporary portraiture.
• Mara Josefa Snchez’s painting Cell Cross (c. 1639–1655) was likely created for private worship. Reflecting religious traditions in early modern Spain, this painting documents the history of intimate devotional practice. This is the first painting by an early modern Spanish woman artist to enter the collection.
• Ben Shahn’s Atlantic City (1946) reflects a pivotal moment in the renowned painter, muralist, and illustrator’s career. Painted during the immediate postwar period, the work references the popular New Jersey beach resort while suggesting the despair the artist experienced in the aftermath of the Holocaust and World War II. This is the first painting by the artist to enter the collection.
• Christina Quarles’s Turn Around, Don’t (2024) is an acrylic painting created in the aftermath of a fire that destroyed the artist’s home in 2024. The work later became one of her only finished paintings to survive the January 2025 Eaton Fire, which destroyed her Altadena neighborhood, and the home she was rebuilding. It also represents a new direction in her practice: the introduction of custom pigments mixed by the artist to create new colors and textures. This is the first work by the artist to enter the collection.
Prints and drawings
• A suite of five woodblock prints by T.C. Cannon (Kiowa/Caddo) (1978) is among the artist’s final projects and is often referred to as the “Memorial Suite.” These works reflect the complexity of Native American experiences in the mid-1900s and capture the intersectionality of Native American culture with the non-Native world by depicting community members in traditional regalia in modern settings. These are the first works by the artist to enter the collection.
• Three woodcut prints by LaToya Hobbs—Transition: Double Self Portrait (2011), Ark of Safety (2023), and Dahlias for Naima (2025)—capture the artist’s interest in illustrating the intimacy of motherhood, as well as her overarching exploration of beauty, cultural identity, and Black womanhood. Hobbs’s deep admiration for the artist and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett is demonstrated in two of these prints: Dahlias for Naima (2025) features Catlett’s granddaughter and was created on the occasion of the National Gallery of Art’s recent Elizabeth Catlett exhibition, and Ark of Safety (2023) was directly inspired by one of Catlett’s compositions. These are the first works by the artist to enter the collection.
Sculptures and installations
• A 17th-century Mexican batea (c. 1650) is a highly detailed shallow bowl that was produced for members of the Spanish elite and emulated Japanese lacquerware. Widely believed to have served as decoration in aristocratic households, the art form is exceedingly rare, with few examples known globally. Its acquisition significantly expands the National Gallery’s holdings of colonial art of the Americas
• Beatriz Cortez’s Black Mirror (2016) is a sculptural installation that bridges industrial production with hand-crafted Indigenous processes, constructed with mechanical materials and accompanied by a soundscape of World War I- and II-era advertisements. It foregrounds the artist’s interest in merging visual languages of labor, ancestral cosmology, and industrial processes. This is the first work by Cortez to enter the collection.
• Mara Elena Gonzlez’s Mnemonic Architecture (2000/2002) unites the artist’s exploration of architecture and memory in an interactive floor installation that recreates the floorplan of her childhood home in Aguacate, Cuba, using thousands of reflective glass beads. The work is a deeply personal meditation on memory, displacement, and exile, and is the first by the artist to enter the National Gallery’s collection.
• Walterio Iraheta’s Leccin de Vuelo #6 (Flight Lesson #6) (2006) is an installation that draws from pop art and minimalism to explore histories of human movement and migration that have shaped the Americas. It is the first work by the artist to enter the collection.
• Fritz Scholder’s (La Jolla Band of Luiseo Indians) Future Clone (1999) is a bronze sculpture that reveals an important aspect of the artist’s practice. Known for his work across two- and three-dimensional mediums, this legacy work is the last sculpture the artist made prior to his passing in 2005. It is the first sculpture by Scholder to enter the National Gallery’s collection. This work is on view on the mezzanine of the East Building.
• Three sculptures from Simn Vega’s Tropical Paradise Colonial Space Suits series (2021–2023) address contemporary legacies of tourism and colonial history in the artist’s native El Salvador. In this series, Vega creates “space suits” from found objects and secondhand Hawaiian shirts to reflect on the complexities of globalization and the modern tourism industry. These are the first works by the artist to enter the collection and expand the National Gallery’s holdings of installation art.
• Vernica Vides’s 1 peso (2002) uses a mass-produced beach towel as a canvas for political and social critique of her native El Salvador. Vides embroidered directly on the surface of the towel, altering the original object with playful references to the country’s currency and economic landscape. It is the first work by Vides to enter the collection.
Photographs and time-based media art
• A suite of eight prints by Wesaam Al-Badry from the artist’s Michigan (Detroit): Polluted Skies and Pennsylvania: Fracking Daisytown series (2023–2024) underscore the artist’s focus on daily life in rural and urban communities in the shadow of industry. The acquisition of the series significantly expands the National Gallery’s holdings of work by the artist.
• An important collection of photographs made between 1940 and 1998 by trailblazing art director and fashion photographer Lillian Bassman and experimental documentary photographer Paul Himmel includes 22 gelatin silver prints by Himmel as well as 26 gelatin silver prints and one bound volume of 32 gold-toned gelatin silver prints by Bassman. Together, the group offers a comprehensive perspective on the couple’s innovative approaches to the medium. The collection includes Bassman’s compelling fashion and portrait photography and a selection of pictures from Himmel’s series on New York City Ballet dancers, which remains one of the most important bodies of 20th-century dance photography, all notable additions to the National Gallery’s holdings of work by both artists.
• Five inkjet prints (2023–2024) by Stacy Kranitz portray contemporary coal-mining communities in Virginia, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Examining the complex relationship between the mining industry and Appalachian communities, these works are the first by the artist to enter the National Gallery’s collection.
• A series of 14 gelatin silver prints by Lorraine O’Grady, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire Goes to the New Museum (1981/2007, printed in 2018), depicts the artist’s performance as the persona of a former beauty queen addressing the status of Black artists in the mainstream art world. Initially staged as an intervention at the New Museum in New York, O’Grady later selected a group of photographs to narrate the piece. This will be the first work by the artist to enter the collection, expanding the National Gallery’s holdings of contemporary performance photography.
