Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Gifted $200 Million American Art Collection
- October 19, 2015 15:01
A major private collection of American art, spanning the Hudson River School to modernism, has been gifted to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
James W. and Frances G. McGlothlin have boosted the VMFA's American art holdings with 73 works which will go on display Nov. 24. Assembled over the course of 20 years, the collection includes top-tier examples by leading American artists, from about the 1830s to 1930s, including 12 works by John Singer Sargent and five by George Wesley Bellows. There are also prime representations of Homer, Hassam, Cassatt, Blum, Chase, Glackens, among others.
“It’s not just the numbers. It’s the quality,” said Alex Nyerges, VMFA director, by phone to the Times-Dispatch. “It speaks to the eye of Jim and Fran McGlothlin, who are the classic example of consummate collectors.
“In terms of aesthetics, they have collected the most amazing examples by some of the most important artists in the 19th and 20th centuries. What they’ve done is marry the academic and scholarly underpinnings of what is great American art with an eye for beauty. They’ve chosen exquisite works of art that are just breathtaking.”
Jim McGlothlin is chairman, CEO and sole owner of The United Co, and the couple lives in Bristol, Va., and Naples, Fla.
“One other reason to give it now,” Fran McGlothlin told the paper about their collection, “it will give the museum a real boost in the American art department. We will now have one of the best American art collections in the U.S.
“Our particular niche will be much fuller, much broader. It gives us pleasure to think of that happening.”
Read more at Richmond Times-Dispatch
