Image: Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, New Brunswick
The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University has announced a gift of more than 70 modern and contemporary works from longtime benefactors Anne and Arthur Goldstein, expanding the museum’s collection of American art with painting, sculpture, photography, and a substantial group of works on paper. The museum said the donation builds on a relationship that began in the late 1990s, when Arthur Goldstein, a Rutgers Law alumnus, first visited the museum.
In the museum’s announcement, director Maura Reilly described the Goldsteins as “visionary collectors” whose collecting history aligns with the Zimmerli’s mission to present a broader and more inclusive history of American art. The museum said the new gift deepens its holdings of artists who have shaped postwar and contemporary practice as well as artists who have received broader institutional attention only more recently.
The donation includes work by established figures such as Tauba Auerbach, Darren Bader, Mark Bradford, Nicole Eisenman, and John Waters, alongside younger artists including Ever Baldwin, Troy Lamarr Chew II, and Lamar Peterson. The gift also adds artists such as Alice Mackler and Kunié Sugiura, whom the museum identified as receiving broader attention only now. According to the museum, the group spans 65 artists across generations and disciplines.
Among the highlights cited by the Zimmerli are Mark Bradford’s ‘Miss China Silk’ (2005), a four-part photographic series; Troy Lamarr Chew II’s ‘Corrlinks and Jaypay/Free My Dawgs’ (2021); Nicole Eisenman’s ‘Untitled’ (1992); Juliana Huxtable’s ‘Untitled in the Rage (Nibiru Cataclysm)’ (2015); Takeshi Kawashima’s ‘New York M-33’ (1966); and a rare double-sided trace monotype by Hedda Sterne, ‘Untitled’ (1949), with additional pencil drawing by the artist. The museum also noted signature drawings by Polly Apfelbaum, Trenton Doyle Hancock, and Elizabeth Murray.
The Zimmerli said the Goldsteins began collecting contemporary art in 1992, initially focusing on photography before expanding into other media. The museum also said their collecting has been rooted in support for living artists, including many whose work was not yet widely recognized. In the announcement, Arthur Goldstein said collecting had been “one of our greatest joys” and described the collection as “a record of our travels and our shared commitment to championing undersung artists.”
With this gift, the Goldsteins’ total donations to the Zimmerli now exceed 160 artworks, according to the museum. Previous gifts included works by Vito Acconci, Laura Aguilar, Lee Friedlander, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Rauschenberg, Collier Schorr, Cindy Sherman, and Hannah Wilke. The museum said many of those artists had not previously been represented in its collection.
The Goldstein gift will be featured in the upcoming exhibition 'Mashup: New Acquisitions from the Zimmerli', which is scheduled to open in February 2027. The museum said the exhibition will also include other recent acquisitions, including a suite of paintings from the Alex Katz Foundation, and that the new works will help generate unexpected connections across time periods, media, and the museum’s collecting areas.
