2011 Annual Report - National Gallery of Art

A major addition to the Gallery’s collection of
Dutch drawings was Bouquet of Spring Flowers in
a Terracotta Vase by Jan van Huysum, made in
the 1720s, purchased with funds donated by the
Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund, the Ahmanson
Foundation, the Glickfield Family Foundation,
and Linda H. Kaufman.
An important acquisition, funded by Alexander
M. and Judith W. Laughlin, was the dramatically
large and vibrant watercolor of the Grand
Waterfalls at Terni by the Swiss landscapist Franz
Kaisermann. Among notable German drawings
acquired this year is Eduard Julius Friedrich
Bendemann’s delicate and tender portrait of a
girl crowned with flowers on her deathbed, still
in its elaborate leather folding case.
Helen Porter and James T. Dyke continued
their generous support of the Gallery with the
gift of a trio of French nineteenth-century drawings:
an early romantic pastel study of a lakeside
abbey at dusk from about 1831 by Paul Huet, a
sunset scene with the pristine clarity of a watercolor
on blue paper by Jean Achille Benouville,
and a tranquil view of the French countryside by
Jean-Paul Flandrin, the first work by this Ingres
protégé to enter the Gallery’s collection.
A bequest from Evelyn Stefansson Nef brought
more than thirty twentieth-century drawings to
the collection, representing artists ranging from
Edouard Vuillard to Alex Katz. The most celebrated
is Picasso’s Young Woman Seated in an
Armchair, 1921–1922, his earliest portrait
of the famous American expatriate beauty
Sara Murphy. The gift also included two
dozen Marc Chagall drawings and watercolors—many
in books personally dedicated
by the artist to Ms. Nef and her late husband,
John Nef.
Foremost among gifts of American drawings
was George Bellows’ Ghost of Sergeant Pelly,
1918, donated by Alexandra and Michael N.
Altman. Joanna Steichen generously bequeathed
twenty works by her late husband, Edward
Steichen, centering on The Oochens, c. 1922, a
set of fifteen tempera paintings on paper made
to illustrate a children’s book but encapsulating
the best in modernist abstraction.
A powerful drawing by the German artist
Hanna Nagel, An Elegant Young Man Glancing to
the Side, 1928, was the first work by this Neue
Sachlichkeit artist to enter the collection.
Likewise representing firsts are two works by
American artist James Castle, a collage purchased
with Collectors Committee funds and an
ink drawing donated by The James Castle
Collection and Archive.
NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART 15
� Jan van Huysum,
Bouquet of Spring Flowers
in a Terracotta Vase, Pepita
Milmore Memorial, The
Ahmanson Foundation,
Glickfield Family
Foundation, Linda H.
Kaufman and Buffy and
William Cafritz Funds
� Edward Steichen,
Madame X and Johnny
Marine, also Known as
Sailor John the Painter,
Gift of Joanna T. Steichen