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This page is meant to be a work in progress to improve the Collections section of the LACMA article

Gallery in history section of each building. historical photos.

Collections
LACMA's more than 250,000 objects are divided among its numerous departments by region, media, and time period and are spread amongst the various museum buildings.

The Modern Art collection is displayed in the Ahmanson Building which was renovated in 2008 to have a new entrance featuring a large staircase, conceived as a gathering place similar to Rome's Spanish Steps. Filling the atrium at the base of the staircase is Tony Smith's massive sculpture Smoke (1967). The modern collection on the plaza level displays works from 1900 to the 1970s, largely populated by the Janice and Henry Lazaroff collection. The plaza level galleries house African art and a gallery highlighting the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies. The second floor of the Ahmanson Building has Greek and Roman Art galleries.

The Art of the Americas Building has American, Latin American and pre-Columbian collections displayed on the second floor and temporary exhibition space on the first floor. The Hammer Building houses the Korean and Chinese collections. Los Angeles sculptor Robert Graham created the towering, bronze Retrospective Column (1981, cast in 1986) for the entrance of the Art of the Americas Building.

The Pavilion for Japanese Art displays the Shin'enkan collection donated by Joe D. Price.

The Contemporary Art collection is displayed in the 60,000 square foot Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM), opened on February 16, 2008. BCAM's inaugural exhibition featured 176 works by 28 artists of postwar Modern art from the late 1950's to the present. All but 30 of the works initially displayed came from the collection of Eli and Edythe Broad.

Surrounding the BCAM building and LACMA's courtyard is a 100 palm tree garden, designed by artist Robert Irwin and landscape architect Paul Comstock. Some of the 30 varieties of palms are in the ground, but most are in large wooden boxes above ground. Directly in front of the new entrance to LACMA on Wilshire Boulevard is Chris Burden's Urban Light (2008), an orderly, multi-tiered installation of 202 antique cast-iron street lights from various cities in and around the Los Angeles area. The street lights are functional, turn on in the evening, and are powered by solar panels on the roof of the BP Grand Entrance.

Originally Jeff Koons Tulips sculpture was inside the Grand Entrance building and the Fire Truck was outside in the courtyard. Both sculptures were removed after being on display for 3 months due to unexpected damage from patrons and wear.

African Art

 * LACMA's online collection of African Art

Art of the Ancient Americas

 * LACMA's online collection of Art of the Ancient Americas

Art of the United States
Some of the notable artworks in the Art of the United States collection are:
 * John Smibert, Portrait of Major General Paul Mascarene 1729, oil on canvas
 * John Singleton Copley, Portrait of a Lady, 1771, oil on canvas
 * Benjamin West, Cymon and Iphignia, 1773, oil on canvas
 * Thomas Cole, L'Allegro, 1845, oil on canvas
 * William Wetmore Story, Cleopatra, 1858, white marble sculpture
 * Winslow Homer, The Cotton Pickers, 1876, oil on canvas
 * Mary Cassat, Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child, 1880, oil on canvas
 * Julius L. Stewart, The Baptism, 1892, oil on canvas
 * John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Mrs. Edward L. Davis and Her Son, Livingston Davis, 1980, oil on canvas
 * George Wesley Bellows, Cliff Dwellers, 1913, oil on canvas
 * Childe Hassam, Avenue of the Allies: Brazil, Belgium, 1918, oil on canvas
 * Paul Cadmus, Coney Island, 1934, oil on canvas


 * LACMA's online collection of Art of the United States

Chinese Art

 * LACMA's online collection of Chinese Art

Contemporary Art

 * LACMA's online collection of Contemporary Art

The Broads contributed $10 million to fund the purchase of Richard Serra's Band sculpture, on display on the first floor of BCAM when the building opened.

Costume & Textiles

 * LACMA's online collection of Costume and Textiles

Decorative Arts and Design

 * LACMA's online collection of Decorative Arts and Design

Egyptian Art

 * LACMA's online collection of Egyptian Art

European Painting and Sculpture
Some of the notable artworks in the European Painting and Sculpture collection are:
 * Andrea Della Robbia, The Annunciation, about 1475-80, lead glazed terra-cotta
 * Rosso Fiorentino, Allegory of Salvation with the Virgin, the Christ Child, Saint Elizabeth, young Saint John and Two Angels, about 1521, oil on panel
 * Annibale Fontana, Adoring Angel, 1583-1584, wax with metal armature and wood base, sculpture
 * unknown artist, Archangel Raphael, 1600, polychromed and guided wood, sculpture
 * Guido Reni, Portrait of Cardinal Roberto Ulbaldino (1581-1635), Papal Legate to Bologna, before 1625, oil on canvas
 * Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, The Rising of Lazarus, before 1630, oil on canvas
 * Anthony Van Dyck, Andromedia Chained to the Rock, 1637-1638, oil on canvas
 * Georges de La Tour, Magdalen with the Smoking Flame, about 1640, oil on canvas
 * Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin, Soap Bubbles, after 1739, oil on canvas
 * John Deare, Judgment on Jupiter, 1786-1787, marble relief
 * Jean-Jacques Feuchère, Satan, about 1836, bronze sculpture
 * Auguste Rodin, She Who Was the Helmet-Maker's Beautiful Wife, about 1880-1885, bronze sculpture
 * Edgar Degas, The Bellelli Sisters, 1862-1864, oil on canvas


 * LACMA's online collection of European Painting
 * LACMA's online collection of European Sculpture

The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies

 * The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies

Islamic Art

 * LACMA's online collection of Arts of the Middle East and Islamic Art

Japanese Art

 * LACMA's online collection of Japanese Art

Korean Art

 * LACMA's online collection of Korean Art

Latin American Art
LACMA's Latin American Art galleries reopened in July 2008 after several years renovation. The Latin American collection includes pre-Columbian, Spanish Colonial, Modern and contemporary works. Many recent additions to the collection were financed by sales of works from an 1,800-piece holding of 20th century Mexican art compiled by dealer-collectors Bernard Lewin|Bernard and Edith Lewin]] and given to the museum in 1997.

The pre-Columbian galleries were redesigned by Jorge Pardo, a Los Angeles artist who works in sculpture, design and architecture. Pardo's display cases are built from thick, stacked sheets of medium-density fiberboard (MDF), with spacing of equal thickness in between the 70-plus layers. The laser-cut organic forms undulate and swell out from the walls, sharply contrasting to the rectangular display cases found in most art museums.

The museum's pre-Columbian collection began in the 1980s with the first installment of a 570-piece gift from Southern California collector Constance McCormick Fearing and the purchase of about 200 pieces from L.A. businessman Proctor Stafford. The holdings recently jumped from about 1,800 to 2,500 objects with a gift of Colombian ceramics from Camilla Chandler Frost, a LACMA trustee and the sister of Otis Chandler, former LA Times publisher, and Stephen and Claudia Muñoz-Kramer of Atlanta, whose family built the collection. A sizable portion of LACMA's pre-Columbian collection was excavated from burial chambers in Colima, Nayarit and other regions around Jalisco in modern-day Mexico.

The Spanish Colonial collection includes work from 17th and 18th century Mexican artists Miguel Cabrera, José de Ibarra, José de Páez and Nicolás Rodriguez Juárez. The collection has galleries for Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo. The Latin American contemporary gallery highlights works Francis Alÿs.

Modern Art
In December 2007, the Modern Art holdings were greatly expanded by the gift of the 130 item Janice and Henri Lazarof Collection. The collection features significant works from; Constantin Brancusi, Edgar Degas, Alberto Giacometti, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso and Camille Pissarro.

“Back Seat Dodge ’38 (1964) by Edward Kienholz, is a sculpture portraying a couple engaged in sexual activity in the back seat of a truncated 1938 Dodge automobile chassis. The piece won Kienholz instant celebrity in 1966 when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors tried to ban the sculpture as pornographic and threatened to withhold financing from LACMA if it included the work in a Kienholz retrospective. A compromise was reached under which the sculpture’s car door would remain closed and guarded, to be opened only on the request of a museum patron who was over 18, and only if no children were present in the gallery. The uproar led to more than 200 people lining up to see the work the day the show opened. Ever since, Back Seat Dodge ’38 has drawn crowds.

Not displayed since its' original show at Washington DC's Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1967, the Ahmanson Building's remodeled atrium now holds Tony Smith's sculpture Smoke (1967). The massive black steel artwork is made up of 43 piers, and is 45 ft. long, 33 ft. wide and 22 ft. high. The work is currently on loan from the artists' estate.
 * October 13, 1967 Time magazine cover featuring Smoke sculpture by Tony Smith
 * October 13, 1967 Time Magazine article featuring Smoke sculpture by Tony Smith

Some of the notable artworks in the Modern Art collection are:
 * Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Sebastiean Juner Vidal, 1903, oil on canvas
 * Georges Braque, Still Life with Violin, 1914, oil on canvas
 * Wassily Kandinsky, UNtitled Improvisation III, 1914, oil on canvas
 * Kurt Schwitters, Construction for Noble Ladies, 1919, oil on canvas
 * Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Two Women, 1911/1922, oil on canvas
 * Henri Matisse, Tea, 1919, oil on canvas
 * Rene Magritte, The Treachery of Images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe), about 1928-1929, oil on canvas
 * David Smith, Cubi XXIII, 1964, stainless steel sculpture
 * Mark Rothko, White Center, 1957, oil on canvas
 * David Hockney, Mulholland Drive, The Road to the Studio, 1980, acrylic on canvas
 * Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park Series No. 49, 1972, oil on canvas
 * Frank Stella, St. Michael's Counterguard, 1984, mixed media on aluminum and fiberglass honeycomb
 * Anselm Kiefer, The Book (Das Buch), 1985, lead, steel and tin


 * LACMA's online collection of Modern Art

Photography
Some of the notable artworks in the Photography collection are:
 * Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907, photogravure
 * Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Hand Photogram, about 1925, gelatin silver print
 * Clarence John Laughlin, The Masks Grow to Us, 1947, gelatin silver print
 * Val Telberg, Portrait of a Friend, about 1947, gelatin silver print
 * Edward Weston, Dunes, Oceano, 1936, gelatin silver print
 * Aaron Siskind, Untitled, 1948, gelatin silver print
 * John Gutmann, Black Jack at Reno at Election Time, 1936, gelatin silver print
 * Robert Frank, Restaurant - U.S. 1 Leaving Columbia, South Carolina, 1955, gelatin silver print
 * Minor White, Windowsill Daydreaming, 1958, gelatin silver print
 * John Pfahl, Triangle, Bermuda, 1975, dye transfer print
 * Eileen Cowin, Untitled (Woman in Red Shirt), 1981, cibachrome print


 * LACMA's online collection of Photography

Prints and Drawings
Some of the notable artworks in the Prints and Drawings collection are:
 * Albrecht Durer, Adam and Eve, 1504, engraving
 * Hans Baldung Grien, The Lamentation, about 1515-1517, woodcut
 * Rosso Fiorentino, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, about 1538-1540, red chalk
 * Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, St. Mark, about 1655-1660, oil and gouache
 * Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Christ Presented to the People, 1655, drypoint
 * Hubert Robert, Landscape with Steps, 1770s, red chalk
 * Eugène Delacroix, Strolling Players, 1833, watercolor
 * James McNeill Whistler, Drouet, 1859, etching and drypoint
 * Hilaire-Germain - Edgar Degas, Actresses in Their Dressing Rooms, 1879-1880, etching and aquatint
 * Winslow Homer, Return from the Hunt, 1892, watercolor
 * Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, La Gitane (The Gypsy), 1900, lithograph in four colors
 * Erich Heckel, Standing Child, 1910, color woodcut
 * Willem de Kooning, Woman, about 1952, pastel, pencil and charcoal


 * LACMA's online collection of Prints and Drawings

South and Southeast Asian Art

 * LACMA's online collection of South and Southeast Asian Art