New Acquisitions, a Major Commission and Spain’s Photography Prize
Three announcements put newly acquired objects, ambitious site-responsive sculpture and a national photography honor in clear focus—from San Marino to Perth and Madrid.
Image: Jan Brueghel the Elder, A Still Life with a Tazza, a Garland of Flowers, and a Jewelry Box, ca. 1620. Oil on panel, 19 x 26 1/4 in. Purchased with funds from the Art Collectors’ Council, with additional support from the Adele S. Browning Memorial Art Fund. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
The Huntington Acquires Five Works, From a Jan Brueghel Still Life to a Raqib Shaw Tapestry
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino has added five works spanning roughly five centuries and four media, acquired with support from its Art Collectors’ Council. Among them is a floral still life by Jan Brueghel the Elder, painted around 1620 and featuring flowers, pearls, a Japanese lacquer box and objects associated with the Americas. It will anchor the Dutch and Flemish galleries when they are reinstalled. The group also includes a Deruta maiolica charger, Zhang Chenglong’s nearly 10-foot Mount Tai, Lofty Marchmount, Sargent Claude Johnson’s gilded copper Untitled (mask), and Raqib Shaw’s tapestry Space Between Dreams – The Pragmatic Pessimist (2022–2023).
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts has named Yona Lee recipient of the 2027 Judy Wheeler Commission. For the fifth commission in the program’s 10-year series, Lee will create an expansive installation across PICA’s first floor. Stainless-steel tubing will wrap around the space as a continuous line, incorporating everyday objects and turning the building into what PICA describes as an expanded drawing. Born in Busan in 1986, Lee works across scales, from tabletop objects to installations occupying museum spaces, buildings and interior surfaces. The commission is supported by a philanthropic gift from the Simpson Family in honor of Judy Wheeler.
Image: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
Vari Caramés Wins Spain’s 2026 National Photography Award
Vari Caramés has won Spain’s 2026 National Photography Award. The self-taught artist is described as an essential figure in Galician photography, with a practice focused on the evocative power of images drawn from his everyday surroundings. The announcement was made by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, which identified Caramés’s sustained attention to familiar places and daily life as central to his work.