At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on Thursday, L.A.-based philanthropist and business leader A. Jerrold Perenchio announced his agreement to bequest the most significant works of his collection to LACMA’s planned new building for its permanent collection. 

The promised gift will dramatically transform the museum’s collection of nineteenth-and twentieth-century European art. Consisting of at least forty-seven works including paintings, works on paper, and sculpture, the majority of the collectionis focused on the 1870s through the 1930s—an era that gave rise to some of the most radical and inventive moments in the history of art.

The distinguished collection, rarely seen in public, elucidates the road from Impressionism to Modernism. Highlights include three significant canvases by the great French Impressionist Claude Monet—a classic painting of water lilies, Nymphéas (c. 1905), the grand still-life, Asters (1880), as well as one of the four versions of the iconic Le Jardin de l’artist à Vétheuil (1881); the firstpainting by Edouard Manet to enter LACMA’s collection, the portrait of M.Gauthier-Lathuille fils (1879); Au Café Concert: La Chanson du Chien by Edgar Degas (1875); and three paintings by Camille Pissarro, among them the early Impressionist Le Déversoir de Pontoise (c. 1868). A Post-Impressionist standout by Pierre Bonnard, Après le repas (1925), joins a group of importanttwentieth-century works, including Pablo Picasso’s early drawing Tête (Head ofFernande) (1909), two exceptional paintings by Fernand Léger, and two by René Magritte, including the exceptional Les Liaisons dangereuses (1935).

News of the historic gift follows on the heels of a unanimous vote by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors yesterday to support LACMA’s plans for a new museum building designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, through a plan to contribute $125 million and future financing, to be matched by $475 million in private support. The new building, which will replace four of the museum’s seven current buildings, is intended to present LACMA’s vast and wide-ranging permanent collection, as well as conservation and study facilities.  

Mr. Perenchio said, “LACMA has made tremendous progress over the past seven years under Michael Govan’s leadership, along with the support of its Board of Trustees and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. With the newly proposed Peter Zumthor building poised to deliver LACMA through thetwenty-first century and beyond, I decided now was the perfect time to announcethat I intend to leave the most important part of my art collection to the museum.Hopefully, my gift will serve as a catalyst to encourage other collectors to do thesame and also stimulate major private donations to ensure that the Peter Zumthor building is built in a timely manner.”

“Gifts of this magnitude are incredibly rare, especially in the fields ofImpressionist and Modern art,” said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director. “2015 will be LACMA’s 50th anniversary, and it is simply astounding to see how far this museum has come in just a few decades. Mr. Perenchio’s generous gift is a cornerstone of our future. Without this collection LACMA could not tell the story of Impressionism and the birth of Modern art. Mr. Perenchio’s artworks will become some of this museum’s greatest highlights.”