Enfilade

From the press release (27 October 2022), which includes links for most works of art referenced in the document:

Victoria Sant served as president of the NGA from 2003 to 2014.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. announced today a remarkable gift of $10 million from the family of Victoria P. Sant, former president of the National Gallery of Art, to fund the acquisition of work by women. An endowment fund, the Victoria P. Sant Fund for Women Artists, will further the National Gallery’s ongoing priority of acquiring more work by women, from historic works to living artists.

In an ongoing commitment to this work, many acquisitions over the past years expand the holdings of creations by women artists across genre and medium. Two acquisitions of special significance were recently approved at the May 2022 Board of Trustees meeting: a portrait by Bolognese painter Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614), the first painting by an early modern Italian woman artist to enter the collection, and a small sculpture by Luisa Roldán (1652–1706) that is the first work by a woman sculptor created before 1850 to enter the collection.

“The National Gallery of Art and our millions of visitors have benefited tremendously from Vicki’s dedication to serving the American public,” said Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery. “It is exciting that we now have an endowment fund to help us acquire masterpieces by women artists, and one that will carry the name of such an exemplary advocate and leader. We look forward to adding important works by women artists from all eras to the collection and continuing the work which Vicki so passionately championed.”

The Victoria P. Sant Fund for Women Artists will be the cornerstone in the ongoing efforts to address the gap of women artists represented in the collection. Vicki Sant (1939–2018) was the first woman president of the National Gallery and a member of the Board of Trustees for 15 years. Future acquisitions will benefit from the generosity of her family, given in loving memory toward a cause so important to her. The National Gallery intends to use this fund to expand the of acquisitions of work by women as part of its commitment to increase holdings of works by these artists. In the past two years (May 2020 to May 2022), 50.6% of the works acquired by purchase were by artists of color, compared to just 12.6% in the two years prior (a 302% increase). During the same period, works by women artists comprised 35.5% of the total, compared to just 20.3% during the two years prior (a 75% increase).

Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of Lucia Bonasoni Garzoni, ca. 1590

This highly detailed and exquisite portrait depicts the 16th-century musician Lucia Bonasoni Garzoni (b. 1561–at least 1610) by the most productive woman artist of the late 16th century, the Bolognese painter Lavinia Fontana. This portrait is among Fontana’s best preserved and most accomplished surviving works in the genre. A rare depiction of a 16th-century woman musician by a 16th-century woman artist, this painting tells the story of two accomplished women who were able to overcome obstacles in a patriarchal society to succeed in the artistic spheres of painting and music.

Fontana died just before her 62nd birthday after a highly successful career. Trained by her father, Prospero Fontana (1512–1597), in the late mannerist style, and most famous for her portraits of noblewomen, she produced her first dateable works around 1575. In addition to portraits, she painted secular and religious subjects, including altarpieces for churches (a rarity in the period), portraits of scholars, and mythological nudes—a subject that was unheard of for women in the period. In 1577, Fontana married Gian Paolo Zappi (ca. 1555–1615), who acted as her business manager; she supported her family, which included 11 children, with the profits from her painting. Fontana is one of 68 known women artists from Bologna in the early modern period and was a trailblazer for women artists who succeeded her.

Luisa Roldán, Virgin and Child, ca. 1680/1686

Luisa Roldán, Virgin and Child, ca. 1680/1686, painted wood, 56 cm high (Washington, DC: NGA, 2022.39.1).

This small carved wood and painted statue by Luisa Roldán is the first work by a woman sculptor from before ca. 1850 to enter the National Gallery’s collection. Widely accepted as a work by Roldan on stylistic grounds, it shares close similarities with a range of sculptures that are widely acknowledged to be by her.

Born in Seville, Roldán was the daughter of Pedro Roldán, one of the city’s most accomplished sculptors. Her introduction to sculpture most likely came from Pedro, with whom she worked in close partnership. At the age of 19, she left home to marry one of her father’s studio assistants, with whom she set up a workshop and began undertaking commissions. Some of her earliest works, identifiable by style, include various life-size figures in painted wood for altarpieces in Seville and processional floats (paseos) that reflect but differ from her father’s style. In 1688 Roldán and her husband moved to Madrid, likely in expectation of an appointment at the court of King Carlos II. Eventually she was awarded the royal title of escultora de cámara, which did not prove especially lucrative. She turned to specializing in painted terracotta scenes. When Felipe V ascended to the throne in 1701, she was reappointed to the Spanish court. Lauded for her accomplishments as a sculptor, she nevertheless died destitute, unable to pay for a funeral. On the day she died, she received recognition as an “Accademica di merit” from the Accademia di San Luca in Rome.

Other Acquisition Highlights by Women Artists

The National Gallery has continued to represent the work of women artists with notable acquisitions over the last two years in all areas of the museum.

Paintings

Faith Ringgold’s (b. 1930) The American People Series #18: The Flag is Bleeding (1967) is the first painting by a leading figure of contemporary art to enter the collection. This pivotal work exemplifies the artist’s skill in using art as a vehicle to question the social dynamics of race, gender, and power. The National Gallery also acquired two works by Carmen Herrera (1915–2022), one of the leading practitioners of abstract art during the second half of the 20th century: Untitled (2013) and the sculptural relief Untitled Estructura (Yellow) (1966/2016). Associated with non-representational, concrete abstraction in Europe, the United States, and Latin America, Herrera’s art contributed to the cross-pollination of modernist ideas.

Genesis Tramaine’s (b. 1983) Clinging unto the Lord (2021) blends a provocative use of color with an urban-inspired, mixed-media approach that focuses on the shape and definition of the “American Black Face” and uses exaggerated features to capture the spirited emotions of the untapped, underrepresented souls of Black people. Carla Accardi (1924–2014), a prominent figure of postwar Italian art and the Italian feminist movement, painted the wavelike forms of Rossorosa (1966) in red varnish on a sheet of clear Sicofoil suspended in front of pink cardboard. The work exemplifies Accardi’s preference for combinations of maximum-intensity hues and bold patterns to create powerful optical effects. Two quilts by Rosie Lee Tompkins (1936–2006) also entered the collection last year. Tompkins created irregularly shaped quilt tops that she valued for their visual and spiritual qualities, rather than their functionality.

Other painting highlights include SONG OF SOLOMON 5:16 – BE BEEWORLD: BE B BOY B GIRL (after “Emperor Xuanzong and Yang Gueifei playing the same flute” by Utamaro Kitagawa) (2014–16) by artist Rozeal (formerly known as Iona Rozeal Brown, b. 1966); Sarah Cain’s (b. 1979) Self-Portrait (2020), an exuberant, mixed-media abstract painting; and Eko Skyscraper (2019) by Njideka Akunyili Crosby (b. 1983), the first work by this celebrated artist to enter the collection.

Sculptures

Sonia Gomes (b. 1948), a contemporary Afro-Brazilian artist, is known for her mixed-media works made of fabric, wire, and other materials. Correnteza (Current) (2018), a sculpture from her Raízes (Roots) series, brings the aesthetic and the human together in memorable sculptures that are at once traditionally Brazilian and fluently contemporary. Chakaia Booker’s (b. 1953) Egress (ca. 2000), the first sculptural work by her to enter the collection, is created with recycled tires that transform familiar symbols of urban waste and blight into extraordinary compositions of renewal.

A pioneer of second-wave feminist and post-war Black nationalist aesthetics, Betye Saar’s (b. 1926) practice examines African American identity, spirituality, and cross-cultural connectedness. The Trickster (1994) reflects Saar’s continued introspection, her assertion of the aesthetic and conceptual power of African cultural forms, and the belief that art can be made from anything. The first major relief by Louise Nevelson (1899–1988), Untitled (ca. 1975), resembles Nevelson’s classic, earlier work in that it consists largely of found pieces of black-painted wood that fit tightly within boxlike containers.

Prints and Drawings

Maria Catharina Prestel, after Louis Bélanger, View of the Loss of the Rhone, 1791, etching and aquatint printed in brown on laid paper, sheet (trimmed to platemark) 56 × 72 cm (Washington, DC: NGA, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 2021.23.1).

Maria Catharina Prestel (1747–1794) was one of the few prominent female pioneers of aquatint. View of the Loss of the Rhone (1791), depicting a geologic fault in France, exemplifies how Prestel created inventive textures to evoke the tactility of brushwork.

The National Gallery acquired three works by Zarina (1937–2020), one of the most celebrated South Asian artists of the past century, who explores questions of displacement, mobility, loss, memory, migration, and cultural dominance in her work: Homes I Made/A Life in Nine Lines (1997) a portfolio of nine etchings; Corners (1980), made from cast paper; and Untitled (1968), a wood relief print.

Israeli artist Orit Hofshi’s (b. 1959) Time… thou ceaseless lackey to eternity (2018), one of her largest polyptychs, explores the history and founding of Israel and its ongoing conflicts with Palestine using the universal themes of migration, displacement, and the toll that human civilization has taken on the land. Nicole Eisenman (b. 1965) is best known as a painter who skillfully combines art history, queer politics, and popular culture into engaging, often fantastical figurative subjects. Beer Garden (2012–17)—at nearly four feet square—stands out as her most monumental print to date and took five years to complete.

Photographs

Carrie Mae Weems, Echoes for Marian, 2014, chromogenic print, image: 127 × 127 cm (Washington, DC: NGA, 2021.8.1).

Celebrated for her ability to explore issues of race, class, gender, power, and injustice with eloquent insight and passionate conviction, Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953) often uses the past to shine a light on the present. Weems’s Untitled (1996, printed 2020) consists of seven inkjet prints, each a reproduction of a historic photograph and each framed with sandblasted text on glass inspired by the heroism of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, one of the first African American regiments formed in the North during the Civil War. In her photograph Echoes for Marian (2014), Weems depicts herself standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, paying homage to Marian Anderson, who performed a concert there in 1939 when the Daughters of the American Revolution barred her from singing in Washington’s Constitution Hall. Weems’s photograph shows how architecture can not only exude a sense of power, but also reinforce it.

Other photography highlights include works by Christina Fernandez (b. 1965), a Los Angeles–based Chicana artist who uses photographs and installations to explore her Mexican heritage and themes of identity, migration, labor, and gender. The National Gallery acquired six prints from her Lavanderia series (2002–03), which depicts laundromats in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of LA, an area of the city that was known at the time as a bastion of Chicano culture, as well as her installation piece, Bend (1999–2000, 2020). Two important photographs by JoAnn Verburg, 3 x Three (2019) and WTC (2003), show how Verburg captures extended moments of time in her art, a theme that she has explored since the 1970s.

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Note — 2014 marked the 75th anniversary of Marian Anderson’s performance at the Lincoln Memorial. The same year that Weems produced her photograph honoring Anderson, the Daughters of the American Revolution hosted Of Thee We Sing, a concert in Constitution Hall “to pay tribute to the talent, strength, and courage” of Anderson as a “remarkable and inspiring woman” (as quoted from the organization’s Marian Anderson Statement, available from the DAR website).

From the press release (1 November 2022) . . .

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Portrait of Joseph Hyacinthe François-de-Paule de Rigaud, comte de Vaudreuil, ca. 1784, oil on canvas, 51 × 38 inches (San Marino: The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation).

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens has acquired a major painting by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842), the most important female artist of 18th-century France. Portrait of Joseph Hyacinthe François-de-Paule de Rigaud, comte de Vaudreuil (ca. 1784) is the second masterpiece to come to The Huntington through a gift from The Ahmanson Foundation.

“We are enormously grateful to The Ahmanson Foundation for making this acquisition possible,” Huntington President Karen Lawrence said. “Adding an important work by Vigée Le Brun helps us achieve one of our goals—adding more works by important women. Once again, The Ahmanson Foundation proves to be an invaluable strategic partner, allowing us to make a masterpiece accessible to Southern California audiences.”

The Vigee Le Brun painting complements The Huntington’s significant collection of 18th-century French decorative art, which was established by Henry and Arabella Huntington in the early 20th century. “This finely painted masterwork will go on display in the Huntington Art Gallery, the building that holds French tapestries and carpets that were once part of the French court’s accoutrements at the Palais du Louvre and Versailles,” said Christina Nielsen, the Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Museum at The Huntington. “It will not only add rich context, but will also shine as a star French painting. While our collection of 18th-century British portraiture is one of the best in the nation, this is our first French portrait of this caliber.”

The painting also has an interesting history. The painter and the subject were both part of the inner circle in the royal court, and they both greatly shaped Parisian salon culture. Their friendship has been celebrated by contemporary writers in poems and verse.

Vigée Le Brun was the daughter of a portraitist and was painting professionally by the time she was in her teens. When she was 28, she was inducted into the French Royal Academy, with the support of Marie Antoinette, and she was one of only four female members. Vaudreuil (1740–1817) was an actor, socialite, and Vigée Le Brun’s primary private patron. In her memoir Souvenirs, Vigée Le Brun reveals her affection for him, calling him “l’Enchanteur” (The Magician).

Painted to commemorate the day when Vaudreuil was made Knight of the Order of the Holy Spirit by King Louis XVI, the seated portrait shows off the sitter as well as the artist’s virtuosity. Vaudreuil is dressed in an ornate brown coat with gold braids, trim, and beads and white silk lining. He wears a sheer lace jabot and cuffs. His shimmering blue sash and the silver badge on his coat represent the knightly Order of the Holy Spirit. The red silk rosette and ribbon are of the royal military order of Saint Louis, which he received from King Louis XVI in 1770. He clasps a fashionable tricorn hat with white plumes under one arm and holds the handle of a ceremonial sword.

Vaudreuil was the son of the governor and commander-general of the French colony Saint-Domingue on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. In addition to a great inheritance, Vaudreuil’s wealth also derived from his own Saint-Domingue sugar plantations, which were powered by enslaved people. “As with our recently acquired drawings of the Jamaican sugar plantation where the famous ‘Pinkie,’ from our British portraits collection, grew up, the Vaudreuil portrait provides us with an opportunity to shine a brighter light on the history of European colonization,” Nielsen said. “We must, and will, reckon with the lives of the people represented on our walls.”

The painting is slated to be installed in the Huntington Art Gallery in November.

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The painting sold in Paris at Christie’s, Maîtres Anciens: Dessins, Peintures, Sculptures (Sale 21059, Lot 232), on 17 May 2022 for €592,200, over twice its low estimate (€250,000–350,000). Two versions of the painting exist: the other is in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.