The National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) has acquired its first work by the US Surrealist Dorothea Tanning. She kept Tableau Vivant (1954) throughout her life, hanging it above her desk in her New York apartment. The painting, one of many depicting Tanning's Lhasa Apso terrier Katchina, was shown in her first UK exhibition in 1955. The NGS had “been looking for a major painting by Tanning for many years”, says its director of Modern and contemporary art, Simon Groom. The work was bought from Alison Jacques Gallery in London for £205,000, with £60,000 coming from the Art Fund and £75,000 from the Henry and Sula Walton Fund. Dorothea Tanning’s Tableau Vivant (1954). Courtesy of National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.
Two philanthropists in Atlanta have donated their collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modernist paintings to the High Museum of Art. Doris and Shouky Shaheen's gift includes works by Matisse, Monet, Modigliani, Pissarro and Sisley. The 24 paintings are due to go on view later this year in a gallery named after the couple. According to the High, the gift is rivalled only by a donation from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 1958 that established the core of the museum’s European art holdings. Camille Pissarro's Ornamental Lake at Kew (1892) is one work now in the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s watercolour is among 900 works allocated to the British Museum from the collection of the art historian John Christian through Arts Council England’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme. The subject matter—a display of violence and masculinity—is “quite different from what we’ve come to expect from Rossetti”, says Susannah Walker, the curator of the British Museum’s exhibition John Christian: Collecting the Last Romantics (until 12 November), in which the painting is displayed. Gabriel Rossetti’s The Death of Breuse San Pitié (1857). Courtesy of the British Museum, London.
The Musée d’Orsay has acquired three paintings and two pastels by Gustave Caillebotte, which once belonged to the French Impressionist’s butler, Jean Daurelle. The five works, which went on view last month, remained in the family until they were bequeathed to the museum by Daurelle’s great-granddaughter Marie-Jeanne. They include two oil portraits of Daurelle in uniform and two vivid pastels depicting his nine-year-old son Camille. The third painting captures a tree in blossom at Caillebotte’s home in Petit-Gennevilliers. The bequest joins seven Caillebotte works in the museum’s collection. Gustave Caillebotte's Portrait of Camille Daurelle in the Park at Yerres (1877) is one of three paintings and pastels acquired by the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
The University of Chicago Library has received more than 2,700 vintage prints by Vivian Maier (1926-2009), a nanny and self-taught street photographer whose work came to light in an auction house’s storage lockers after a lifetime of obscurity. The photographs were donated by John Maloof, who purchased the storage lockers in Chicago in 2007 and amassed a collection of 100,000 of Maier’s negatives and prints. The works will be available to scholars in the library’s Special Collections Research Center, to which Maloof donated 500 Maier prints in 2017. The donation includes many of Maier's Chicago street scenes. Courtesy of University of Chicago Library. Photographs by Vivian Maier
Top five museum acquisitions of the month
Our pick of the latest gifts and purchases to enter international museum collections—from Dorothea Tanning's Surrealist terrier to vintage prints by Vivian Maier
Dorothea Tanning’s Tableau Vivant (1954) Courtesy of the National Galleries of Scotland