Contemporary Art
A History of Innovation
Since its founding, the museum has always collected contemporary art. Founder Alfred Heber Holbrook bought Jacob Lawrence’s painting “Children at Play” in 1947, the same year Lawrence painted it. Many of beloved works in the museum’s collection by major artists such as Joan Mitchell, Gregory Gillespie, Kyohei Inukai, Red Grooms and Philip Guston were acquired shortly after their creation. What we now consider “contemporary” art means the time period from the 1980s to today.
In 2019, the museum received a gift of contemporary art produced within the last few decades from John and Sara Shlesinger that fundamentally transformed our collection and reignited contemporary exhibitions, programming and acquisition efforts. In recent years, the museum has deepened its commitment to Holbrook’s vision by purchasing works of contemporary art from living and underrepresented artists, including Kent Monkman, Signe Kongsgaard Mogensen, Kei Ito and Nancy Baker Cahill.
More About Our Contemporary Art Collection
The Shlesinger Collection
The John and Sara Shlesinger Collection of Contemporary Art includes works by emerging and established artists from across the globe. In 2019, John and Sara Shlesinger donated 110 works of contemporary art to the museum to expand access for University of Georgia students who would benefit from studying cutting-edge artworks in person.
The Shlesinger collection(opens in new tab) includes a wide variety of mediums from contemporary sculpture and painting to mixed media and photography dating from the 1990s to the present. Exhibited in both special exhibitions and in our permanent collection galleries, the works advance conventional perceptions of contemporary and abstract art by presenting new and experimental perspectives. Artists in the collection include Daniel Arsham, Sarah Braman, David Benjamin, Walead Beshty, Liz Craft, Shannon Ebner, Daniel Hesidence, Damien Hirst, Mike Kelley, Rosy Keyser, Jennifer Sirey, Mika Tajima and Sterling Ruby, among others.
