Wifredo Lam, L’esprit veillant (The Watchful Spirit), 1944. Oil on canvas, overall: 153.67 x 124.46 cm (60 1/2 x 49 in.) framed: 179.07 x 153.67 cm (70 1/2 x 60 1/2 in.) National Gallery of Art, Patrons’ Permanent Fund and Gift of Funds from Leonard A. Lauder, 2026.23.1
WASHINGTON, DC.- The National Gallery of Art today announced the acquisition of significant new works, marking a meaningful expansion of the nation’s art collection. The acquisitions, spanning rare examples of devotional art, historical paintings, contemporary print multiples, and a noteworthy photography collection, showcase major artistic movements and innovative uses of materials across centuries.
Notable among the additions to the collection are a suite of woodblock prints by T.C. Cannon; a 17th-century crucifix painting by María Josefa Sánchez; a major work by Wifredo Lam, completed after his return to Cuba in the early 1940s; and a painting by Christina Quarles, one of the only finished works in her Altadena studio to survive the 2025 Eaton Fire in Southern California. Many of the acquisitions introduce important artists to the nation’s collection for the first time, including Marie Bracquemond, LaToya Hobbs, Stacey Kranitz, and Lorraine O’Grady. Others deepen the National Gallery’s existing collection, such as the first painting by social realist artist Ben Shahn and a major bronze sculpture by Fritz Scholder that reveals a new facet of the celebrated artist’s practice…