In the spring of 2019, we reopened our second-floor galleries with an exciting new presentation of our permanent collection. Headlining this reinstallation is the Museum’s recent acquisition, Kehinde Wiley’s monumental new portrait Jacob de Graeff (2018) from the artist’s Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis exhibition. Wiley’s extraordinary painting anchors a new portrait gallery that also features a newly acquired painting by John Singleton Copley and works by Anthony van Dyck, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alice Neel, and George Bellows, as well as the Museum’s extraordinary George Washington painting. Other galleries focus on a variety of topics such as the still life, animal paintings, landscapes, seascapes, and genre and history painting. Featured artists include Georgia O’Keeffe, Gustave Courbet, Eugène Boudin, Thomas Moran, Charles Willson Peale, Robert Henri, Richard Diebenkorn, and Luca Giordano.
In 2019, OKCMOA also acquired “An Italian Autumn” by renowned American artist Thomas Cole. This major work by an American master adds to the Museum’s strong collection of American art prior to 1945. Cole’s painting headlines our landscape and animal painting gallery that also features works by George Inness, Gustave Courbet, Thomas Moran, Jasper Cropsey, John Sloan, Oscar Brousse Jacobson, Doel Reed, and Alexandre Hogue, among others.
Credits: Kehinde Wiley (American, b. 1977). Jacob de Graeff (detail), 2018. Oil on canvas. Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Museum purchase with funds from the Carolyn A. Hill Collections Endowment and the Pauline Morrison Ledbetter Collections Endowment, 2018.103. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles California. Photo: Jean-Paul Torno, courtesy of Saint Louis Art Museum © Kehinde Wiley. | Thomas Cole (American, 1801–1848). An Italian Autumn, ca. 1847. Oil on canvas. Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Museum purchase with funds from the James C. and Virginia W. Meade Collections Endowment, the Meade Acquisition Fund, and the Beaux Arts Society Fund for Acquisitions, 2019.001
