UMCA Recent Acquisitions Opening Reception and Special Event Adopt an Artwork

Help us celebrate the UMCA's outstanding permanent collection of master contemporary works of art on paper by adopting one of the works in the Recent Acquisitions exhibition. When you adopt an artwork, you will receive a color reproduction of the artwork. In recognition, your name will appear on a label alongside the artwork you adopt, informing the public of your generous contribution.

Your adoption will support the UMCA's conservation and curatorial work to keep the museum's entire collection of 2,800 prints, drawings, and photographs dazzling and fresh for many future generations.

Adoption fees are $100 per artwork. Adopt one for yourself or give one to friends or family this holiday season! To adopt an artwork, view artworks on our website fac.umass.edu/umca and download a form to mail to the address at the bottom with payment and an indication of which works you wish to adopt.  Call 413-545-3670 for further details.  Orders with payment must be received by December 15, 2012, to ensure proper time for delivery of your "artwork" reproduction by December 24.

The UMCA’s Permanent Collection is a vital part of the museum's programs. Since its inception in 1962 the collection has grown each year, through gifts and selected purchases, to include today 2,800 master works of art on paper (prints, drawings, and photographs) by modern and contemporary artists. Collection building is an important museum mandate.  In acquiring new works, it is important to select those that enhance the breadth and depth of the institution’s holdings and provide a range of opportunities for presentation and interpretation.

The UMCA has been fortunate to receive several important gifts over the last year, which will be on view here for the first time. This exhibition honors and celebrates these donors and supporters who have made possible the growth of this distinguished archive, as well as the artists who represent the vitality and richness of art-making today.

Included in this exhibition is a major gift of eight print portfolios published by Exit Art, a New York nonprofit cultural center which closed its doors in 2011, after three decades as a showcase of avant-garde work by artists from around the world. These portfolios, dating from 1999 – 2011, contain works by 50 renowned artists, spanning a range of printmaking processes such as Iris prints, woodcuts, hydraulic embossing, experimental silk screens, laser cuts, lithographs, monographs, and prints on rubber. The prints in Exit Art's portfolios have been produced by some of the most respected and well-known artists in New York and internationally such as David Byrne; Richard Tuttle; Nari Ward; Pat Steir; Do-Ho Suh; Marina Abramovic; Diana Al-Hadid; Robert Kushner; and Isabella Kirkland, among many others. These portfolios were a gift from the board of Exit Art under the recommendation of 30-year board member Jerry Kearns, also a faculty member of the UMass Art Department.