Celebrating 15 Years of Collecting

September 5 — January 31, 2016

This commemorative exhibition of more than 100 works presents the most important collections acquired by The Baker Museum in its 15-year trajectory. Providing visitors with a comprehensive experience of the museum’s holdings, Celebrating 15 Years also recognizes the individuals whose passion and vision helped assemble one of the most impressive compilations of 20^th century art in Southwest Florida. The selection includes well-known works as well as key pieces that have not been on display in recent years.

Organized chronologically by acquisition date, this exhibition presents the development of the museum’s permanent collection. The 15-year journey begins with selections from the foundational Ahmet Ertegün Collection acquired in 2000, which includes work by seminal American artists such as A.E. Gallatin, Alexander Calder and Thomas Hart Benton. Amassed by music industry entrepreneur Ahmet Ertegün in the 1970s, the selection shows his comprehensive vision of balanced aesthetics and content.

Celebrating 15 Years also presents work from two impressive collections of modern Mexican art: The Harry Pollak Collection acquired in 2002 and The Bryna Prensky Collection acquired in 2007.

Consisting of more than 100 objects, The Harry Pollak Collection is a testament to the passion for art shared by Mr. Pollak and his wife Sharley. Assembled over 30 years, this remarkable collection includes Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Rufino Tamayo, among other influential artists.

The Bryna Prensky Collection, kindly given to The Baker Museum by Michael F. and Tonya L. Aranda in 2007, was built from close relationships with a group of young and emerging artists working in Mexico in the latter half of the 20^th century. This collection includes a great diversity of styles and subject matter and shows Bryna Prensky’s passion for the promotion of artists whose work was as not as widely known as that of the Los Tres Grandes (“The Three Great Ones”): Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

The Olga Hirshhorn Collection includes more than 200 works created by some of the foremost modern European and American artists. Along with her husband Joe Hirshhorn, founding donor of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., Mrs. Hirshhorn established close friendships with Pablo Picasso, Willem de Kooning and Georgia O’Keeffe, among many other modern artists. Her unique collection, of which only a selection is displayed in this exhibition, is commonly known as The Mouse House. It is an assortment of mostly small scale works originally installed in the 500-square-foot home in Washington, D.C. Mrs. Hirshhorn purchased after her husband passed away. Acquired in 2013, this selection attests to the museum’s constant growth of its permanent collection.

Celebrating 15 Years of Collecting at The Baker Museum also offers works from The Robert B. and Dorothy M. Gronlund Collection, The John and Melissa Gridley Collection and The Photography Collection, among others.

Join us and explore our permanent collection as we celebrate and look ahead to the next 15 years of The Baker Museum.

This exhibition has been organized by Artis—Naples, The Baker Museum, and is generously underwritten by Friends of Art.