The Brooklyn Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) and Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York will receive a collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and modern works belonging to the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation.
The foundation revealed today (4 August) that its holdings will be split among the three institutions, with the Brooklyn Museum receiving 29 works (including pieces by Chaïm Soutine, Edgar Degas and Amedeo Modigliani), Lacma taking ownership of six pieces (among them paintings by Edouard Manet and Vincent van Gogh) and MoMA receiving 28 pieces (mostly paintings and works on paper by Paul Cézanne).
The Pearlman Foundation collection’s origins date to 1945, when the Brooklyn-born businessman Henry Pearlman bought a Soutine landscape painting and never looked back. He and his wife, Rose Pearlman, established their namesake foundation the following decade. After Henry died in 1974, Rose took over management of the collection until her own death in 1994.
Between 1960 and 1986, six exhibitions devoted to the Pearlman Foundation collection were held at the Brooklyn Museum. Since 1976, the Pearlman Foundation collection had been on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey. Selections from the foundation’s holdings were the basis of several travelling exhibitions organised by the Princeton museum, including Cézanne and the Modern: Masterpieces of European Art from the Pearlman Collection (2014-16) and Artists in Motion: Modern Masterpieces from the Pearlman Collection (2023-24). The foundation has previously donated works to other museums and sold pieces at auction; the 63 works going to the Brooklyn Museum, Lacma and MoMA are the last remaining works in the collection.
“For years, we have explored every model we could imagine for the future ownership and guardianship of this collection,” Daniel Edelman, the Pearlman Foundation’s president, said in a statement. “We ultimately chose the Brooklyn Museum for the works that tell Henry’s story of discovery and for its commitment to engaging a diverse community; Lacma for works that specifically enhance their ability to innovate around bringing art to where people are; and MoMA, where Cézanne’s works on paper will be shared and cared for by one of the finest departments of drawings and prints that we know, as well as a half dozen of his paintings that together support the artist’s foundational role in the story of modern art.”
Vincent van Gogh, Tarascon Stagecoach, 1888 Lacma, promised gift from the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, photo by Bruce White
Among the 29 works going to the Brooklyn Museum are a rare limestone sculpture by Modigliani (Head, from around 1910-11) and his 1916 portrait of the author Jean Cocteau. The six works headed to Lacma include Tarascon Stagecoach (1888) by Van Gogh and Young Woman in a Round Hat (around 1877-79) by Manet—neither artist was previously represented in the museum’s collection. MoMA will receive two major Cézanne paintings—Mont Sainte-Victoire (around 1904-06) and Cistern in the Park of Château Noir (around 1900)—plus a group of 15 watercolours by the artist.
“Henry Pearlman collected with the public in mind, believing that modern art should inspire audiences of all backgrounds,” Anne Pasternak, the Brooklyn Museum’s director, said in a statement, noting that the foundation’s gift is “the most significant addition to our European art holdings in nearly a century”. She added: “We’re honoured to give a group of these masterworks a permanent home in the borough where the Pearlman family grew up. As important, we are excited by the foundation’s strategy of collection sharing with our wonderful peers, MoMA and Lacma.”
The gifted works will form the basis of upcoming exhibitions at all three institutions, with Village Square: Gifts of Modern Art from the Pearlman Collection to the Brooklyn Museum, Lacma and MoMA opening in Los Angeles in February 2026 before travelling to Brooklyn in July 2026. A subsequent MoMA show will also feature works from the Pearlman Collection.
