A gift to the Chrysler Museum includes works by American masters.
Aseismic $34 million gift to the Chrysler Museum of Art (which celebrates its 50th year) in Norfolk from philanthropist Joan Brock includes paintings by American masters John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, and William Merritt Chase. “I could not be happier to make this gift to the Chrysler, and to the Hampton Roads region that has been my home for most of my life,” Brock said in a statement referencing her late husband, Dollar Tree founder, Macon Brock. “Our collection has brought us true joy, and I’m hoping museum visitors will be inspired as we have by these great artists.”
Brock’s gift of 29 paintings will introduce works from the Hudson River School, American Impressionism, the Aesthetic Movement, and 20th Century American Modernism to the museum’s current collection. The donation will also endow two positions at the museum and support the expansion of the museum’s Perry Glass Studio.
“The Brock Collection is one of the most significant private collections of American art assembled in the 21st century,” notes Corey Piper, Brock Curator of American Art. “Major paintings and works on paper by the most important artists of the late-19th and early-20th centuries chart a broad history of American art of the period and will allow the Chrysler to tell new and more compelling stories of our nation’s artistic history.” A selection of new works will be on view in a winter exhibition at the museum. Chrysler.org
This article originally appeared in the October 2022 issue.
