The group of new acquisitions features oil paintings and pastels from American artists including Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Georgia O’Keeffe, John Singer Sargent, and others.
All 27 works are currently on view in the museum’s exhibition American Masterworks.
Cooperstown, NY -- Fenimore Art Museum announced that its acquisition and installation of 27 major works of American art valued at $33.8 million is now complete. The final two pieces, both pastels, were recently installed. Campanile at Lido (1879) by James McNeill Whistler and Still Life with Fruit, Vase and Cup (1910) by Max Weber are on view through December 29, 2024, as part of the exhibition American Masterworks. Acquisition of these works was generously funded by the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust.
Over the past nine months, 25 oil paintings and two pastels were added to Fenimore’s collection of American art. The grouping includes works by Albert Bierstadt, Theodore Earl Butler, Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Frederic Edwin Church, Samual Colman, Frederick Carl Frieseke, William Glackens, Childe Hassam, Martin Johnson Heade, Robert Henri, George Inness, David Johnson, Eastman Johnson, Joshua Johnson, Ernest Lawson, Thomas Moran, Georgia O’Keeffe, Maurice Prendergast, John Singer Sargent, Joan Sloan, Max Weber, and James McNeill Whistler. The acquisitions highlight the museum’s effort to expand its already significant collection. This group broadens the scope to include major works created from the 1850s to about 1930, allowing the museum to tell the story of American art and culture as it evolved after the Civil War.
“With the inclusion of these new acquisitions, Fenimore now showcases a comprehensive collection of American Art, representing a group of artists who are considered masters,” said Dr. Paul S. D’Ambrosio, Fenimore Art Museum President and CEO. “The new works build upon the early and mid-nineteenth century works left to the museum by our original benefactor Stephen C. Clark. Likewise, we continue the legacy of the generous gift of the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art given to us in 1995 by the Thaws and housed in a new wing funded by Clark’s granddaughter, Jane Forbes Clark.”
All new acquisitions are currently on view in the museum’s exhibition American Masterworks.
In 2025, Fenimore Art Museum will present the exhibition Mary Cassatt / Berthe Morisot: Allies in Impressionism (May 24-September 1, 2025) featuring one of the museum’s new acquisitions, the painting Madame de Fleury and Her Child (c. 1890-1891) by Mary Cassatt. The exhibition explores the relationship of Cassatt and Berthe Morisot, and how the two navigated the male-dominated Impressionist circle in Paris.
For more information on American Masterworks, visit FenimoreArt.org.
ABOUT FENIMORE ART MUSEUM
Fenimore Art Museum, located on the shores of Otsego Lake—James Fenimore Cooper’s “Glimmerglass”—in historic Cooperstown, New York, presents changing exhibitions each season. Past shows featured artists such as Keith Haring, Ansel Adams, Banksy, M.C. Escher, and many others. The museum features a wide-ranging collection of American art including folk art; important American 18th- and 19th-century landscape, genre, and portrait paintings from artists including Albert Bierstadt, Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Frederic Edwin Church, Childe Hassam, Martin Johnson Heade, Robert Henri, George Inness, Eastman Johnson, Joshua Johnson, Thomas Moran, Georgia O’Keeffe, Maurice Prendergast, John Singer Sargent, Max Weber, and James McNeill Whistler; more than 125,000 historic photographs representing the technical developments made in photography and providing extensive visual documentation of the region’s unique history; and the renowned Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art comprised of nearly 900 art objects representative of a broad geographic range of North American Indian cultures, from the Northwest Coast, Eastern Woodlands, Plains, Southwest, Great Lakes, and Prairie regions. Visit FenimoreArt.org.
MUSEUM HOURS
September 3–December 29: Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. (closed Mondays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas). Museum admission is free for visitors 19 and under. Find more information at FenimoreArt.org.
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Fenimore Art Museum
(607) 547-1472