Palmer Museum of Art announces major gift of the John Driscoll American Drawings Collection

The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Friday, March 29, 2024


Palmer Museum of Art announces major gift of the John Driscoll American Drawings Collection
John Vanderlyn (1776-1852), Study After Poussin (Study for the Baptism of Christ), c. 1795, charcoal on paper, 11 x 17 inches. Palmer Museum of Art, John Driscoll American Drawings Collection.



UNIVERSITY PARK, PA.- The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State today announces a transformational gift of 140 American works on paper, recently donated by Penn State alumnus Dr. John P. Driscoll. The expansive gift, one of the most important in the forty-seven-year history of the University’s art museum, establishes a significant American drawings collection at the Palmer Museum of Art.

The John Driscoll American Drawings Collection spans more than 150 years of American art history from 1795 to 1950, and in many ways, reflects the wide-ranging scholarly and collecting interests of its namesake.

Highlights of the collection include a rare and early charcoal sketch by the neoclassical painter John Vanderlyn, important Hudson River School drawings by Jasper Francis Cropsey, Sanford Robinson Gifford, David Johnson, Jervis McEntee, and William Trost Richards, as well as city and architectural scenes by the most accomplished artists of the nineteenth century. Works on paper by women artists and a rare sketchbook by Jane Peterson, as well as Native American and western subjects, are well represented in the collection.

Additional important works by Edwin Austin Abbey, Kenyon Cox, Arthur B. Davies, and Charles Hawthorne traverse the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and lead into an important group of six drawings done between 1908 and 1934 by the early American modernist Marsden Hartley. Driscoll’s gift also includes oil paintings by Arthur B. Davies, John Francis, William Sidney Mount, and Russell Smith, as well as the only extant complete set of Marsden Hartley’s 1923 “Berlin Prints.”

“This gift of significant drawings, watercolors, and sketchbooks wonderfully complements and greatly enhances the museum’s extensive collection of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American painting,” said Director Erin M. Coe. “As an integral part of a teaching museum embedded in a tier-one research university,” Coe added, “the collection will become an important resource promoting new scholarship and research that fosters the study of American art for generations to come.”

Driscoll, who earned a master’s degree as well as Ph.D. in art history from Penn State, is a scholar, collector, gardener, and art dealer based in New York City. His involvement with Penn State’s university art museum dates back nearly fifty years to the summer of 1972, when he began working at the museum as a graduate assistant. In 1976, he became the museum’s first official registrar. In late 1978, Driscoll left Penn State for a position as curator of the William H. Lane Foundation in Massachusetts, followed by a guest curatorial post at the Worcester Art Museum before establishing an art gallery in Boston and then, acquiring Babcock Galleries, New York, in 1987. In 2012, he renamed the business Driscoll Babcock. This year marks the gallery’s 167th year, making it New York’s oldest art gallery.

“My life in the world of aesthetic and scholarly concerns came into sharp focus while studying art history and working in the Museum of Art at Penn State,” said Driscoll. “I have always been appreciative of those experiences and the wonderful people with whom I had, and continue to have, the opportunity to work and grow. My wish is that my continuing association with the Palmer Museum of Art be an expression of my appreciation and that it will have a continuing beneficial effect for students and visitors to the University and the museum.”

Driscoll’s philanthropy has taken many forms since his time at Penn State. His past gifts of art to the Palmer include major paintings by Benjamin West, Jacob Eichholtz, Tompkins Harrison Matteson, and Sanford Robinson Gifford; a large group of prints, drawings, and paintings by American modernist Arthur B. Davies; contemporary works by Abe Ajay, Marylyn Dintenfass, Alan Gussow, Don Nice, and Jenny Morgan; and notable ceramics.

Driscoll has written extensively on American art and has been the curator, co-curator, or a contributor to exhibitions that have traveled to more than twenty leading museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, National Academy of Design, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art. Driscoll serves on the Advisory Board of the Palmer Museum of Art, has twice been its chair, is a past member of The Board and The Council of the National Academy of Design and is currently on the Visiting Committee, Department of Drawings and Prints, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.










Today's News

March 27, 2019

Saint Louis Art Museum presents major retrospective of Rachel Whiteread's career

Stolen Picasso unearthed by 'Indiana Jones of art'

Palmer Museum of Art announces major gift of the John Driscoll American Drawings Collection

Christie's to offer prints from the collection of the late Larry Saphire

Major gifts and new curatorial position in Latin American art at the Dallas Museum of Art

Sports history you can touch at Julien's Auctions Sporting Legends Memorabilia Sale

From bodybuilders to biker chicks: Classic & contemporary photographs at Swann

Exhibition questions notions of utility, rationality and progress

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery opens a solo exhibition of works by Haim Steinbach

Exhibition features works by masters of early 20th-century Soviet photography

Denver Museum of Nature & Science to hosts most comprehensive exhibition about Leonardo ever presented

Miller & Miller Auctions announces Advertising & Nostalgia Auction

Pace Gallery opens an exhibition of works by Chinese contemporary artist Xiao Yu

Chenn Family Collection boosts Heritage Auctions' Asian Art Auction beyond $2.2 Million

Monumental Iraqi Modernist painting to lead Sotheby's 20th Century Art / Middle East auction

Art Central opens today at Central Harbourfront

Waverly Rare Books explores subjects of travel and the natural world with April 4 auction

Chicago Symphony musicians perform for free as strike lingers

Bare-breasted mermaids get covered up in Indonesia

Exhibition presents art that addresses machine intelligence and the social role of the human body

Rare collection of 1840-1940 couture and accessories comes to auction at Ewbank's in Surrey

Curator Miranda Lash loins Joan Mitchell Foundation Board

Jerwood Gallery relaunching as Hastings Contemporary

Hales announces representation of the Estate of Anwar Jalal Shemza




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful