NEW LONDON, CONN.- The Lyman Allyn Art Museum announced that is has launched its first art gallery on the Web. With this new online capability, the Museum is able to share portions of its collection even when the Museum’s physical galleries are otherwise full. The first exhibition in this online gallery showcases important recent acquisitions to the permanent collection.

In late 2015 and early 2016, the Lyman Allyn was the fortunate recipient of four gifts, most notably an outstanding group of 114 modern and contemporary objects from the collection of Anthony and Elizabeth Enders.

The Enders gift is one of incredible breadth, offering an overview of the contemporary art market over the last 35 or so years, with works by Matthew Barney, Nan Goldin, David Hockney, Sol LeWitt, Chris Ofili, Robert Rauschenberg, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Lorna Simpson, and Darren Waterston, among many others. The Enders gift greatly expands the Lyman Allyn’s holdings in Modern and Contemporary art, adding works by 76 artists not previously represented in the Museum’s holdings.

While the Enders gift extends the breadth of the Lyman Allyn’s collection, recent gifts by donors Karen Metzger Ganz and Sheldron Seplowitz add depth with smaller, focused groups of objects.

Karen Metzger Ganz, Connecticut College Class of 1965, has donated a portfolio of contemporary photographs to the Lyman Allyn every year for over a decade, building and strengthening the Museum’s collection of contemporary photography. The 2015 gift is a portfolio of ten striking black-and-white photographs of Brazil by the New York-based photographer Kristin Capp.

Sheldron Seplowitz of Stamford, Connecticut donated five Salvador Dalí lithographs to the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in December 2015. Two colorful and evocative religious pieces comprise Dalí’s New Jerusalem suite, while three lithographs illustrate segments of the History of Don Quixote, all from 1980.

In addition to modern and contemporary art, the Museum received an important group of 18thand 19th century New London county objects from Lance Mayer and Gay Myers. Acclaimed conservators and technical art historians, Mayer and Myers retired from their long and accomplished practice (based at the Lyman Allyn) at the end of 2015. To mark this occasion, the couple generously gave the Museum objects of regional importance, including two Chippendale side chairs attributed to the Norwich maker Felix Huntington, and a Windsor side chair by the New London furniture maker William Harris, Jr.

Many newly acquired objects engage issues of gender, politics, culture, race, and class, allowing the Lyman Allyn Art Museum to better reflect the complex multiplicity of our contemporary world. Images of the selected highlights can be viewed here.