{"id":412321,"date":"2025-09-10T05:17:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T05:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/412321\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T05:17:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T05:17:14","slug":"metropolitan-museum-gifted-188-dada-and-surrealist-works-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/412321\/","title":{"rendered":"Metropolitan Museum gifted 188 Dada and Surrealist works – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s holdings of works from the early 20th century associated with Dada and Surrealism just received a major boost thanks to John Pritzker, a collector, museum trustee and billionaire private equity manager based in San Francisco. On Monday (8 September), the Met announced it has received a promised gift from Pritzker that includes 188 works by 37 artists associated with these movements, including Man Ray, Max Ernst, Marcel and Suzanne Duchamp, Jean Arp, Lee Miller, Beatrice Wood, Francis Picabia, Kurt Schwitters.<\/p>\n

The works in Pritzker\u2019s promised gift, collectively known as the Bluff Collection<\/a>, include 35 pieces that will go on view later this week in Man Ray: When Objects Dream<\/a> (14 September-1 February 2026), a major exhibition devoted to the artist\u2019s experimentation with rayographs. Among those works are many of Man Ray\u2019s most famous images, including his photographs of the artist and performer Alice Prin (aka Kiki de Montparnasse) rendered with a violin\u2019s sound holes on her back (Le violon d\u2019Ingres, 1924) and posed holding a Baule mask from the Ivory Coast (Noire et blanche, 1926).<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve long been interested in the period between the world wars and the exciting community of artists involved in Dada and Surrealism,\u201d Pritzker said in a statement. \u201cAs I\u2019ve built the collection, Man Ray has been a central figure, especially as a person who moved between groups and connected ideas. Artists in his circle, such as Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia, were, like Man Ray, instigators and innovators. Together, this group broke down barriers of what defined a painting, sculpture, text or photograph, and more\u2014what art itself could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Man Ray, Le violon d\u2019Ingres, 1924 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bluff Collection, Promised Gift of John A. Pritzker. Photo by Ian Reeves. \u00a9 Man Ray 2015 Trust \/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY \/ ADAGP, Paris 2025<\/p>\n

Pritzker, who was elected to the Met\u2019s board of trustees in 2019, is also gifting the Met more than 100 books, pamphlets, journals and other ephemera. And, through his John Pritzker Family Fund, he will also finance a new research initiative at the Met, the Bluff Collaborative for Research on Dada and Surrealism.<\/p>\n

The gifts come as the Met moves forward with plans for a new $550m wing for Modern and contemporary art<\/a>. Construction on the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing designed by Frida Escobedo\u2014the first female architect to design a wing in the museum\u2019s 155-year history\u2014is expected to begin next year and be completed by 2030.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis incredible promised gift arrives at a pivotal moment as we expand and invigorate our holdings in preparation for the opening of the Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art, and it further cements the Met as an essential destination for experiencing the full sweep of art history\u2014from antiquity to the art of today,\u201d Max Hollein, the museum\u2019s director and chief executive, said in a statement. \u201cIt enhances our ability to offer a profound, more comprehensive view of these outstanding artists and enigmatic trailblazers of Modernism whose bold and influential experimentation across media continues to fascinate and inspire.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not the only blockbuster gift of Modern and contemporary art that the Met has received this year. This spring the museum received more than 6,500 objects<\/a> from one of the world\u2019s foremost photography collectors, Artur Walther, and his Walther Family Foundation. It also received a trove of more than 500 prints<\/a> by Inuit artists from Nunavut and Nunavik, donated by the collectors Ren\u00e9 Balcer and Carolyn Hsu-Balcer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s holdings of works from the early 20th century associated with Dada and Surrealism…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,141743,4022,77,141742,24754,38185,4842,86418,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-412321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-dada","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-man-ray","14":"tag-metropolitan-museum-of-art","15":"tag-museum-acquisitions","16":"tag-museums-heritage","17":"tag-surrealism","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115178310528922414","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}