SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY.- The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College has received a gift of 75 works of contemporary art from the collection of the computer programmer and philanthropist Peter Norton. This is the first in a series of gifts to university art museums and teaching museums throughout the country—drawn from Norton’s personal collection—to support the integration of the visual arts in higher education, foster creative museum practice, and engage diverse audiences with contemporary art.

Norton initiated his first large donation project in 2000, gifting over 1,000 pieces from his collection to 32 select institutions. His gift to the Tang Teaching Museum represents the inauguration of his second major donation project. In addition to the Tang, the museums receiving a gift from Norton include: UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California; Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; California Museum of Photography and Sweeney Art Gallery at UCR ARTSblock, University of California Riverside, Riverside, California; Hammer Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, California; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; and Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

The gift to the Tang includes works by some of today’s leading contemporary artists, including Polly Apfelbaum, Matthew Barney, Nicole Cherubini, Willie Cole, Renee Cox, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Gabriel Orozco, Lari Pittman, Martha Rosler, Erika Rothenberg, Lorna Simpson, William Villalongo, Carrie Mae Weems, Fred Wilson, and Millie Wilson. In addition, the gift will bolster the Tang’s photography collection, adding key works by Sam Durant, Anna Gaskell, Louise Lawler, Malik Sidbe, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Gillian Wearing, among others.

Building on the Tang Museum’s interest in acquiring works that reflect the museum’s exhibition history and teaching mission, the gift also includes works by a number of artists who have had major solo shows at the museum, including Nayland Blake, Nicole Eisenman, Joseph Grigely, Martin Kersels, Dario Robleto, Alyson Shotz, Fred Tomaselli, and Kara Walker, as well as works featured in the Tang’s current exhibition I was a double.

Highlights of the gift include:

· Fred Wilson, Pharaoh Fetish, 1993, plaster, leather, and wood beads. Wilson was featured in a career retrospective at the Tang Teaching Museum in 2002, Fred Wilson: Objects and Installations 1979-2000, and was the Luce Distinguished Visiting Fellow for the Program in Object Exhibition and Knowledge at the Tang Teaching Museum from 2006-08.

· Nayland Blake, Feeder 2, 1998, gingerbread on a steel frame; Gorge, 1998, video. Blake’s works were featured in the Tang’s 2003 survey exhibition Some Kind of Love: Nayland Blake, Performance Video 1989-2002.

· Kara Walker, Keys to the Coop, 1997, work on paper; I’ll be A Monkey’s Uncle, 1995, work on paper; and The Bush, Skinny, De-boning, 2002, sculpture. Walker was featured in the Tang’s 2003 solo exhibition Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress.

· Martin Kersels, Buoy, 1999, mixed media including a mirror ball, a Walkman, an amplifier, a speaker, a tin can, a flashing light, and a motor. His work was featured in the 2007 Tang survey exhibition Martin Kersels: Heavyweight Champion.