Impactful New Additions to the Parrish Art Museum’s Permanent Collection This Fall Include 26 Works By Joe Zucker

The new acquisitions also include works by Mary Abbott, Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Enoc Perez, Günther Förg, Purvis Young, and others.

Water Mill, NY – October 15, 2024 – The Parrish Art Museum is delighted to announce the addition of significant artworks to the Museum’s permanent collection. The acquisitions include works by major artists and cover a diverse range of artistic styles and eras and further solidify the Museum’s commitment to collecting and presenting a comprehensive range of contemporary and historical art with close ties to the East End of Long Island.

A major gift of 26 works made by Joe Zucker (American, 1941–2024) between 1966 and 1991, including from the Boxing series, and a series of Capt. Hook’s Crew made of Rhoplex, acrylic, sash cord, and wood, came from a gift of Carl Youngman, Robert Feldman, and Julia Mangold. Zucker, who lived in East Hampton, emerged from Abstract Expressionism to pursue a constantly evolving artistic inquiry into the physical properties of painting. His unorthodox approach to artmaking yielded several innovative and unpredictable techniques and bodies of work. This donation furthers the Museum’s already significant holding of work by Zucker, allowing the Parrish to showcase the breadth and depth of the artist’s illustrious 50+ year career.

Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, Executive Director of the Parrish Art Museum, remarked, “The Museum’s latest acquisitions represent a powerful expansion in depth and breadth of our collection, featuring a diverse group of significant artists, many of whom further the great pantheon of East End artists such as Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem and Elaine De Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, and Fairfield Porter. I am delighted that the artists of these new acquisitions now join this illustrious group. We are incredibly grateful for the support of our friends and donors, whose generosity continues to enrich our museum and deepen our offering for future generations.”

Enoc Perez’s (American, b. 1967, San Juan, Puerto Rico) Caribe Hilton Hotel, San Juan (2022) comes to the Parrish after Perez was recently included in the Museum’s 125th Anniversary exhibition series, Artists Choose Parrish. The oil on linen painting is synonymous with Perez’s unique style of colorful renderings, employing a loose, abstract style, giving his work a sketch-like quality of Modernist architecture in his native Puerto Rico. This marks the first work by Perez in the Museum’s collection.

Among the notable acquisitions are works donated by Yvonne Puffer and the late Sean Elwood, founder of North Fork Contemporary. They include a painting by Mary Abbott from the 1980s, and a Lithograph Study for The Gates by Christo & Jeanne-Claude (Christo Yavacheff, Bulgarian, 1935–2020; Jeanne-Claude, French, 1935–2009), representing the first work by the artists in the collection, and two etchings by Portuguese artist Julião Sarmento.

Over the years, Puffer and Elwood have generously gifted more than 20 works to the Museum.

Another valued donation comes from Sag Harbor-based collector E.T. Williams, who has repeatedly gifted works by Black artists to the Museum. The 2003 painting by self-taught artist Purvis Young (American, 1943–2010), is the artist’s first work to enter the Parrish collection at an opportune moment as Young has several works in the current exhibition Edges of Ailey at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Several works were donated by environmental artist Lillian Ball, including her own Envisioning Seahorse National Park, 2021, a triptych of hand-painted, etched glass panels; Scott Bluedorn’s (American, b. 1986), Cold Georgica II, 2019, acrylic on wood, the third work by the East End artist in the Museum’s collection; video art pioneer peter campus’s (American, b. 1937) archival pigment print, At the Edge of the Ocean, 2007; Jeremy Dennis’s (Shinnecock, b. 1990) The Legend of O-Na-Wut-A-Qut-O, 2017, Mounted Dibond on aluminum; Courtney M. Leonard’s (Shinnecock, b. 1980), Abundance (Blue), 2016, a ceramic work and the first of Leonard’s in the collection; and James Welling’s (American, b. 1951), Ferris Wheel from the Los Angeles series, 2004, gelatin silver print. This is the first work by Welling in the Museum’s collection.Other works include Irina Alimanestianu’s (American, b. 1957), Forest Walk, 2015, oil on wood panel, 40 x 30 in. This will be one among the first four works by Alimanestianu in the Museum’s collection, whose work is in the collection of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Madrid, Spain, among others.

Günther Förg (German, 1952–2013), Untitled, 2003, Acrylic on canvas. Donated by George Wells and Manfred Rantner, this will be the first work by Förg in the Museum’s collection.