This summer, 11 new additions to the Museum’s collection make their BMA debut. Read more about some of these recent acquisitions below and plan your next visit with a comprehensive list of new works on view and a map of where to find them.

John Ahearn, Bashira, 1992

Charlie Ahearn, Bashira Walton Avenue 1992, 1992

For over four decades, artist John Ahearn has cast plaster sculptures of individuals during sidewalk workshops on Walton Avenue in his South Bronx, New York, neighborhood. This work depicts Bashira, a young boy who had just graduated from elementary school. Bashira chose his pose and his outfit, presenting himself with pride in his academic regalia.

Through portraits like this, Ahearn records the energy and beauty of community relationships and individuals he recognizes and admires while not turning away from painful realities of life in his disinvested neighborhood. Bashira is a potent reminder of how art derived from community engagement intertwines social realities and cultural contexts.

John Ahearn’s twin brother, the artist and filmmaker Charlie Ahearn, created Bashira Walton Avenue 1992 as a companion and collaboration with his brother’s sculpture. It captures the energy of the moment as John Ahearn snapped Polaroids of young Bashira striking his pose and the two completed the casting process while Bashira’s mother and other neighbors looked on.

The BMA was proud to acquire this important video artwork in tandem with trustee Michael Sherman and Carrie Tivador’s historic gift of Bashira to the BMA collection. The sculpture and video are now on view in the Contemporary Wing in How Do We Know the World? Two out of 350+ works acquired by the Museum in the last year, they expand the stories we can tell of figurative art, community practice, and contemporary portraiture.

Brenda Goodman, Untitled, 1973

While this Brenda Goodman painting includes universal representations of anxiety, the inspiration came from a very personal experience. In 1972, Goodman’s mother died after a six-month battle with lung cancer. Overwhelmed with emotion, the Detroit-based artist used strips of canvas and her mother’s black leather gloves to sculpt a multi-armed work storing her grief. That sculpture became the model for this painting, which Goodman animates into a frenzied self-portrait. This painting captures the trauma of loss, and portrays Goodman’s emergence from grief and a return to her artistic vocation.

Lilla Cabot Perry, Theater Posters, Ikao, Japan, 1900

American Impressionist painter Lilla Cabot Perry began her formal studies at age 36 in Boston, Massachusetts, and continued her studies in Europe, training in the French Impressionist style she learned from Claude Monet (1840–1926). While living in Japan from 1897 to 1900, Perry produced approximately 80 paintings. Many of these works, including this one of eye-catching theater posters in primary colors, incorporate the influence of traditional Japanese compositions with a strong emphasis on asymmetry and diagonal lines, seen in the steep steps and rooflines. The contrasting lavender tones and touches of yellow also reflect Perry’s study of the French Impressionist use of complementary color to bring light and movement to a scene.

Vian Sora, Last Sound, 2022

Iraq-born and Louisville-based artist Vian Sora uses abstraction to understand the ever-present and evolving process of becoming. Her firsthand experiences of war, political upheaval, migration, and subsequent geographic and cultural displacement have deeply affected both her life and her art. This painting’s title alludes to the belief that the last familiar sound of one’s past life continues to resonate in the present. Sora modeled her technique after ancient Mesopotamian mural paintings and relief traditions of her own cultural heritage, using oils, dry pigments, dyes, and thinning solvents to create leather-like textures.

WHERE TO FIND THE WORKS

Contemporary Wing, 2nd Floor, Caswell J. Caplan Memorial Gallery

  1. John Ahearn. Bashira. 1992. Baltimore Museum of Art, Gift of Michael Sherman and Carrie Tivador, Los Angeles, BMA 2023.93. © John Ahearn
  2. Charlie Ahearn. Bashira Walton Avenue 1992. 1992. Baltimore Museum of Art, Art Fund established with exchange funds from gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates, Sandra O. Moose, National Endowment for the Arts, Lawrence Rubin, Phillip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon, BMA 2023.82.
  3. Brenda Goodman. Untitled. 1973. Baltimore Museum of Art, Art Fund established with exchange funds from Gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates, Sandra O. Moose, National Endowment for the Arts, Lawrence Rubin, Phillip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon, BMA 2023.219. © Brenda Goodman
  4. Jiha Moon. Siren. 2023. Baltimore Museum of Art, Art Fund established with exchange funds from gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates, Sandra O. Moose, National Endowment for the Arts, Lawrence Rubin, Phillip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon. BMA 2023.226. © Courtesy Shoshana Wayne Gallery and the Artist

Contemporary Wing, 2nd Floor, Walter G. Lohr, Jr. Gallery

  • 5. Vian Sora. Last Sound. 2022. Baltimore Museum of Art, Art Fund established with exchange funds from gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates, Sandra O. Moose, National Endowment for the Arts, Lawrence Rubin, Phillip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon, BMA 2023.92. © Vian Sora

Contemporary Wing, 2nd Floor, Howard & Martha Head Gallery

  1. Rasheed Araeen. Pher Bahar Ayee (Come Spring Again). 2022. Baltimore Museum of Art, Art Fund established with exchange funds from gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates, Sandra O. Moose, National Endowment for the Arts, Lawrence Rubin, Phillip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon, BMA 2023.94. © Rasheed Araeen and Aicon, New York

Dorothy McIlvain Scott American Wing, Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone Gallery

  1. Lillian Cabot Perry. Theater Posters, Ikao, Japan. 1900. Baltimore Museum of Art, Art Fund established with exchange funds from gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates, Sandra O. Moose, National Endowment for the Arts, Lawrence Rubin, Phillip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon, BMA 2023.3.
  2. Fortune Justice. Face Jug. c.1870-1880. Baltimore Museum of Art, Decorative Arts Acquisitions Endowment established by the Friends of the American Wing, BMA 2023.80

Dorothy McIlvain Scott American Wing, Jean and Allan Berman Textile Gallery

  1. Laura Woodward. Autumn. 1878. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Art Fund established with exchange funds from gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates, Sandra O. Moose, National Endowment for the Arts, Lawrence Rubin, Philip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon, BMA 2023.4

Jacobs Wing, Samson Feldman Gallery

  1. Balthasar van der Ast. A Tulip, a Carnation and Roses, with Shells and Insects, on a Ledge. 1630s. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Art Fund established with exchange funds from gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates, Sandra O. Moose, National Endowment for the Arts, Lawrence Rubin, Philip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon, BMA 2023.20

Cone Wing, Gallery 4

  1. Marie Bracquemond. Flower Vases at Sèvres. c.1880-1885. Baltimore Museum of Art, Fanny B. Thalheimer Memorial Fund, BMA 2023.243