The Brooklyn Museum has revealed the nearly 600 works that it acquired in roughly the past year, providing a view into the institution’s collecting priorities as it marks its 200th anniversary.
Contemporary art continued to be a core focus, with works by Tony Bechara, Nicole Eisenman, Jack Pierson, Enrique Chagoya, Bisa Butler, and others of note joining the museum’s holdings in 2025. Also among the newly acquired works is Christian Marclay’s 2022 video Doors, which is currently on view at the institution.
The museum also received a gift of photography from Greg and Clark Wakabayashi, the children of the late fashion photographer Hiro, that included pictures by Richard Avedon, Bill Brandt, Irving Penn, and others.
Meanwhile, the museum worked to expand its holdings related to Africa and its diaspora ahead of the opening of a gallery devoted to that area of the collection in 2027. The museum is also focused on acquiring design objects, with the plans to add some to its current presentation of that field, “Design: 1880 to Now.”
In a statement, Anne Pasternak, the museum’s director, said, “We are tremendously grateful for the enduring support of our benefactors, whose partnership helps build a collection that inspires wonder, connects us to our shared sense of humanity, and explores important historical narratives. It’s an honor to welcome these remarkable and significant contributions to our collection, and to share them with our community.”
Below, a look at six newly acquired works by the Brooklyn Museum.
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Ahn Jeung-geun, Calligraphy, October 1909
Image Credit: Brooklyn Museum Working while Korea was still occupied by Japan, activist Ahn Jeung-geun scrawled this message about the necessity of patriotism for Korea’s people. “There is no turning back from sacrificing yourself for your country,” reads his message, which was written around the time that he assassinated the Japanese politician Itō Hirobumi.
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Soga Shohaku, Lakeside Landscape, ca. 1760–68
Image Credit: Brooklyn Museum While better known for his ink paintings of roiled oceans and fearsome monsters, this scroll shows off a more sedate side of Soga Shohaku, one of the key painters of Edo period Japan. The Brooklyn Museum now owns it thanks to Carol and John Lyden.
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David MacDonald, Beaded Nyama Form, 1979
Image Credit: Sam Glass/©David MacDonald/Courtesy Eric Firestone Gallery, New York/Brooklyn Museum Paying homage to a range of African traditions, David McDonald has titled his piece, Beaded Nyama Form, after a life force believed to be found in certain animals, according to various West African thought systems. The Brooklyn Museum plans to add the work to its galleries for design objects in February.
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Jenny Holzer, HEAP, 2012
Image Credit: ©2025 Jenny Holzer/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Brooklyn Museum Jenny Holzer’s paranoiac sculptures make use of text that obliquely refers to skewed power dynamics; this one makes underscores how, for her, those dynamics are often gendered. The installation is currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum, where its blue emanation can be seen from far away.
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Richard Avedon, Andy Warhol, Artist, August 20, 1969
Image Credit: ©Richard Avedon/Brooklyn Museum In 1968, Andy Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas and lived to tell the tale. A year later, he revealed his mangled body for photographer Richard Avedon, whose camera captured the scarred-over areas torn open by her bullet. The picture was gifted to the museum by Hiro’s children.
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Paul Pfeiffer, Red Green Blue, 2022
Image Credit: ©Paul Pfeiffer/Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery/Brooklyn Museum In this video, Paul Pfeiffer intersperses images of ecstatic cheerleaders and coaches with the exterior of the stadium where they are set. “Here, Pfeiffer is less interested in the ‘stars’ of the show, as it were, than in the totality of a show’s shape and context, whose elements he picks apart and casts in unexpected proportions to reveal their latent dynamics of power and desire,” wrote Beatrice Loayza in a profile of the artist for Art in America. The Brooklyn Museum jointly acquired the piece with the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, which recently surveyed the artist’s work.
