Growing the Permanent Collection for The Baker Museum
Gifts received toward pillar: $9.4 million of the $95+ million committed to the Future—Forward Campaign
With more than 4,000 objects, The Baker Museum’s broad holdings of 20th- and 21st-century art reflect the generosity and commitment of area collectors. The museum’s greatest strength lies in collections of American and Mexican modern art. The collection can also be regarded as one in which European and American modernism are in dialogue with each other. Artis—Naples has built a team of curatorial professionals who have researched the museum’s holdings and established collecting principles to guide this museum into the future.
The foundational elements of the collection — including works by Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, Jacob Lawrence, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Joan Mitchell and many more — have come from noted collectors. Harry Pollak and Bryna Prensky both cultivated outstanding holdings of Mexican modern art. Music mogul Ahmet Ertegün amassed impeccable collections of early American modernism. Olga Hirshhorn’s Mouse House collection was filled with 20th-century masters, both American and European.
Supporters of this pillar enabled The Baker Museum, as a relatively young museum, to significantly grow its permanent collection and ensure that great art can be exhibited and cared for in perpetuity.
Pictured above: Patrons socialize at an evening event in Norris Garden with the recent acquisition Red Reeds by Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941). Red Reeds (detail), 2020. Glass, 10 x 43 x 2 feet. Artis—Naples, The Baker Museum. Museum purchase made possible through the generosity of Patty and Jay Baker and Jeanette Montgomery Evert and Herbert P. Evert, 2021.2.1