19th Anniversary

Museum of Women in the Arts received one abstract painting by African- American artist Mildred Thompson from her Magnetic Fields series (Fig. 13) and one of her wood pictures. This past spring, the collectors committee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art contributed approximately $2.6 million to purchase works by six women artists, including Martha Boto, Betye Saar, Jennifer Bartlett and Julie Mehretu. Michael Govan, the museum’s director, has declared its intention to put women artists “front and center.” Others acquiring the work of women artists are the Cleveland Museum of Art, which purchased Emma Amos’s Sandy and Her Husband (1973): the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which bought a group of thirty-seven photographs by Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide; the San Jose Museum of Art, which received as a donation five works by sculptor Louise Nevelson (Fig. 14) from the collection of Beverly and Peter Lipman of Portola Valley and the Lipman Family Foundation; and the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, which bought directly from the Alice Neel estate Julie and the Doll (1943). The J. Paul Getty Museum has added Camille Claudel’s 1887 bronze Torso of a Crouching Woman . Slowly, the Getty has been building its holdings of artwork by women artists and has works by sculptors Luisa Roldàn (La Roldana), Barbara Hepworth, and Elisabeth Frink.  Daniel Grant is a freelance writer specializing in the arts industry. 2019 Antiques & Fine Art 121 Fig. 14: Louise Nevelson (1899–1988), Cascades-Perpendiculars II (Night Music), 1980–1982. Wood painted black, 82 x 33 x 38 in. San José Museum of Art; Gift of the Lipman Family Foundation, (2017.17.05). Image courtesy of Pace Gallery, New York. Fig. 12: Beauford Delaney (1901–1979), Self Portrait in a Paris Bath House, 1971. Oil on can- vas, 21¾ x 18 inches. Knoxville Museum of Art. All images: © Estate of Beauford Delaney, by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire, Court Appointed Administrator. Fig. 13: Mildred Thompson (1936–2003), Magnetic Fields, 1990. Oil on canvas, 62 x 48 inches. Gift of the Georgia Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in honor of the 30th anniversary of the Georgia Committee and the National Museum of Women in the Arts; ©The Mildred Thompson Estate; Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co., New York.