RALEIGH, NC.- The North Carolina Museum of Art celebrates a year of record visitation to the Museum galleries and the 164-acre Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park. It also announces a slate of exciting new acquisitions that has increased the representation of female, Black, Native American, and North Carolina artists in the People’s Collection, including Joseph Teth Ashong (Paa Joe), Endia Beal, Faith Couch, Leonardo Drew, Christopher Holt, Vaughn Spann, Lina Iris Viktor, Marie Watt, and Antoine Williams.




“The People’s Collection at the North Carolina Museum of Art is dynamic and growing—changing to reflect our commitment to offering multiple perspectives and acquiring important works by Black, Native American, female, and North Carolina artists,” said Valerie Hillings, Museum director. “Our dedicated staff of curators and team of global consultants seek out new acquisitions to strengthen and diversify the collection throughout the year, allowing the NCMA to highlight specific periods, geographies, and artistic careers while offering insight into the interconnectivity of art and material culture across time and place.”

A record 1,114,124 people visited the galleries and the Museum Park during 2021, enjoying the free People’s Collection; ticketed exhibitions Golden Mummies of Egypt and Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau Visionary; and a slate of free exhibitions that featured North Carolina artists, including NC Artist Connections: The Beautiful Project, Stephen Hayes, and Hồng-Ân Trương, Break the Mold: New Takes on Contemporary Art Making, and Talent Within: The NCMA Staff Art Exhibition.

The People’s Collection, both inside and in the Museum Park, was expanded in 2021, with key acquisitions by female, Native American, and Black artists, as well as works by North Carolina artists. The new works of art are composed of multiple mediums, among them ceramics, metalwork, painting, photography, and sculpture, such as Leonardo Drew’s monumental Number 235, 2021, which was featured in the 2020 NCMA-originated exhibition Leonardo Drew: Making Chaos Legible. Other recent additions to the collection include works by legendary painter Jacob Lawrence; a 17th-century Dutch portrait by Gerrit van Honthorst; a mixed-media sculpture by contemporary Native American sculptor Marie Watt; a contemporary, gold-embellished abstraction by Liberian British artist Lina Iris Viktor; a video installation by internationally renowned South African multimedia artist William Kentridge; additions by North Carolina artists including paintings and photographs by Scott Avett, Endia Beal, Faith Couch, and Antoine Williams, and a monumental Cor-ten steel sculpture by Hoss Haley; and a bronze sculpture by Simone Leigh, who will represent the United States at the 2022 Venice Biennale. In the Museum Park, visitors can soon find themselves reflected in Jeppe Hein’s Mirror Labyrinth, 2016, a series of mirrored panels that allow the viewer to walk throughout them.

World-class works of ceremonial art were also added to the Judaic collection, including silver Torah finials by 18th-century female silversmith Hester Bateman; a German Hanukkah lamp from 1750; an Israeli Torah crown by Zelig Segal, circa 2000; a German Sabbath lamp by Georg Gerstner from the first quarter of the 18th century; and a Roman circumcision knife, 1751–61, and Roman shield, last half of the 18th century, with a case by Alessandro Doria.

These acquisitions are part of an intentional collecting strategy laid out in the Museum’s current strategic plan. In each of its four goal areas—collections and exhibitions, education and outreach, Museum Park, and culture—the Museum identified diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion priorities. The collections and exhibitions goal sets out to reconceive the People’s Collection to highlight multiple varied histories, voices, and perspectives with input from diverse consultants. Another aspect of this goal aligns acquisition, loan, and commission strategies to bolster and share the diversity of artists represented in the collection and to amplify the achievements of North Carolina creators. This new presentation of the People’s Collection will go on view in October 2022.