BROOKLYN, NY.- The Brooklyn Museum has acquired over 330 artworks this year, enriching its encyclopedic collection representing 6,000 years of creative excellence. These acquisitions strengthen institutional holdings across collection areas, including American Art, Arts of Africa, Asian Art, Contemporary Art, Feminist Art, Decorative Arts and Design, and Photography.

More than one hundred of the acquisitions are gifts of art given by the Museum’s valued donors in honor of its 200th anniversary. They will be displayed in the upcoming exhibition Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200, open February 28, 2025–February 22, 2026. In particular, the exhibition will showcase extraordinary gifts of contemporary art, including paintings, photographs, video, sculpture, and ceramics. Exemplary gifts of work by well-established artists such as Julie Mehretu, Robert Frank, Alex Katz, and Coco Fusco will be joined by contributions from influential artists working today, many of whom are based in Brooklyn. Breaking the Mold will rotate works halfway through its run, displaying additional major gifts the Museum has received in honor of its bicentennial (to be announced in 2025). Other gifts are currently on display throughout the Museum, including in the reinstalled American Art galleries and on the Iris Cantor Plaza.

“We are blown away by the tremendous support of our benefactors who stepped up to celebrate our 200th anniversary with historic gifts of art, greatly enhancing a collection that inspires awe, illuminates shared histories, and connects us to one another,” says Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy Director, Brooklyn Museum. “We cannot think of a more meaningful way to celebrate our bicentennial than by welcoming these exceptional and important pieces to our collection and sharing them with our community.”

The gifts come from a tremendous range of donors, some of which include Sasha and Edward P. Bass, Alan L. Beller, Rona and Jeffrey Citrin, John and Miyoko U. Davey, Beth Rudin DeWoody, J.A. Forde, Dennis Freedman, Amanda and Glenn Fuhrman, Steven and Kathy Guttman, Jane Hait and Justin Beal, Stephanie and Tim Ingrassia, Michi and Charles Jigarjian, Elizabeth and William Kahane, Alex Katz and the Alex Katz Foundation, Karen Kiehl and Peter Labbat, Miyoung Lee and Neill Simpkins, Ryan E. Lee, Linda Macklowe, Tracey and Phillip Riese, Jonathan and Debbie Rosen, Rahul Sabhnani, Regina K. Scully, Carla Shen and Christopher Schott, Jon and Denine Sherman, Colleen and Graves Tompkins, Barbara and John Vogelstein, Amanda and John Waldron, the Brooklyn Museum Contemporary Art Council, and The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation. Together they reflect the Museum’s distinctive position as a premier cultural institution in Brooklyn, New York, and beyond.

All the works acquired this year have deepened the Museum’s commitment to representing generations of emerging and established artists in a wide range of disciplines. Noteworthy feminist works by Flora Yukhnovich, Judy Chicago, Myrtle Williams, Cheryl Riley, Rachel Martin, and Sonya Kelliher-Combs have supplemented the Museum’s Arts of the Americas, Contemporary Art, Decorative Arts and Design, and Feminist Art collections. The Arts of Africa collection has grown with acquisitions by contemporary artists including Billy Monk, Trevor Stuurman, and Penny Siopis, invigorating one of the oldest collections of its kind in the United States. Significant contributions continue to build the Museum’s Asian Art collection, including works by Kondō Takahiro and Mishima Kimiyo.

The Decorative Arts and Design collection has seen tremendous growth. A gift of thirty-five icons and prototypes, including twenty-five notable works of Italian Radical Design dating from approximately 1965 to 1989, from leading design collector and creative designer Dennis Freedman builds on the Museum’s superlative holdings of Italian design. The 200th anniversary has also been an opportunity to add works of contemporary design by Jorge Lizarazo of Hechizoo and Chris Schanck.

Important gifts of American art can be seen in Toward Joy: New Frameworks for American Art, the Museum’s critically acclaimed reinstallation of its American Art galleries, such as pieces by Kyōhei Inukai the Elder. Those works, as well as new additions by Kyōhei Inukai the Younger, bolster the trailblazing collection of art by Asian American artists within the American Art collection.

The Contemporary Art collection has seen particularly notable additions that broaden the histories, narratives, and perspectives therein. The Museum has gained its first paintings by a number of artists, including Derrick Adams, Peter Halley, Nicolas Party, and Winfred Rembert. Significant early sculptures by artists such as Joel Shapiro and Carl Andre and recent work by Antony Gormley and Kennedy Yanko have also joined the collection, as well as tour de forces by Mark di Suvero, Rashid Johnson, and Nicole Eisenman. Major time-based works by Carrie Mae Weems, Doug Aitken, Isaac Julien, and Coco Fusco have entered the collection as well.

The Photography collection has been augmented by twenty-six of Robert Frank’s 1958 photographs of Coney Island, a gift from the Robert Frank Foundation. A moving gift of photographs by Joel Sternfeld tells the tragic story of David Buckel in nearby Prospect Park, expanding the Museum’s collection of photography depicting Brooklyn. Multiple works by Jimmy DeSana have entered the collection as well, acquired from the artist’s first museum survey at the Brooklyn Museum in 2022–23. In addition, a historic gift of iconic works by Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and Bill Brandt from the estate of renowned photographer Hiro further establishes the Museum as a significant center for portrait photography.