ASHEVILLE, NC.- The Asheville Art Museum has recently added several unique and diverse works to its Permanent Collection as a result of gifts made by the Museum’s Collectors’ Circle, a membership group that encourages the exchange of ideas and interests, art learning, connoisseurship and collecting. As a vibrant and critical source of support, the Circle members are dedicated to growing the Museum’s Permanent Collection through annual gifts of artwork, selected and presented in partnership with the Curatorial staff. Since the group’s beginning in 2004, the Circle or Circle Members have added more than 100 works of art to the Museum’s Permanent Collection through annual purchases from an acquisition fund created by yearly dues.

“This was a very exciting year for Collectors’ Circle acquisitions,” said Associate Curator Carolyn Grosch. “With the help and generosity of the Circle, we were able to acquire a wide range of new works for the Permanent Collection, including selections that will strengthen our Black Mountain College Collection, our collection of Cherokee artwork, and our holdings in American Regionalism, early 20th-century Arts & Crafts, and contemporary photography. As we look forward to the reinterpretation and reinstallation of our Permanent Collection galleries in 2018, these works will help us to tell the story, not only of American art in the 20th and 21st centuries, but also of art in the Southeast region. We look forward to sharing these new additions with the Asheville community and our visitors from around the world.”

The Museum added the following works to its Permanent Collection in 2016 through its Collectors’ Circle:

· Elizabeth Colwell, Winter Scene, 1911, Color woodblock print, signed and dated, 5.5 x 6.5 inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by Jim Wilson & Lynne Poirier-Wilson and Bob Benites.

· Newcomb College Pottery decorated by Anna Frances Simpson, Vase Moon/Tammany Pine Trees, 1930, Ceramic, 9.25 inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by 2016 Collectors’ Circle members Nat and Anne Burkhardt.

· Thomas Hart Benton, The Woodpile, nd, Lithograph, edition of 250, 12 x 15.875 inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by an anonymous donor.

· Esteban Vicente, Peace (from the Peace Portfolio), 1970, Color Lithograph, 26 x 21 inches Edition 45/175. Museum purchase with funds provided by 2016 Collectors’ Circle members Russell and Ladene Newton.

· Jamie Baldridge, Group of 3 photographs from the Belle Epoque series, 2009-2011: The Hindenburg Signal Ballet; Brownian Motion; Phrases from a Broken Language, pigment prints on Hahnemühle PhotoRag, 22.75 x 22.75 inches, edition 5 of 15 (edition 6 of 12 for Hindenburg Signal Ballet). Museum purchase with funds provided by the Nat C. Myers Photography Fund.

· Shan Goshorn, basket (Commissioned work by a contemporary Cherokee artist). 2016 Collectors’ Circle purchase with additional funds provided by 2016 Collectors’ Circle members Gail and Brian McCarthy.

· Mickalene Thomas, Interior: Zebra with Two Chairs and Funky Fur, 2014, relief, intaglio, lithography, digital, collage, enamel paint, gold leaf, colored pencil, 43 x 53 inches, edition 22/24. 2016 Collectors’ Circle purchase with additional funds provided by 2016 Collectors’ Circle members Cherry and Paul Lentz Saenger.