Miami philanthropists donate an American masterpiece to Britain's Tate Modern
Britain's Tate Modern art museum on Thursday unveiled one of the most significant gifts it has received in years – a masterpiece by an American abstract expressionist that hung for years on a bedroom wall in Miami.
Joan Mitchell's painting 'Iva' is the centerpiece of a major donation from Florida-based philanthropists Jorge M. Pérez and Darlene Pérez that also will help Tate expand its collection of works by Latin American and African artists.
The 20 foot-long (6 meter-long) triptych featuring bold strokes of purple, red, yellow and white – painted in 1973 and named for Mitchell's much-loved German Shepherd – went on public display Thursday next to a roomful of murals by U.S. artist Mark Rothko that is one of Tate Modern's biggest draws.
Tate director Maria Balshaw said the big, bold Rothko canvasses are among the museum's 'crown jewels,' and Mitchell's 'spectacular' painting 'will truly shine' in their company.
Balshaw said Mitchell – like many female artists 'underappreciated' during her lifetime – should take her rightful place alongside her male peers.
Prices for Mitchell's work have soared since her death in 1992, with an untitled painting selling at Christie's auction house in 2023 for $29 million. Such prices put her works beyond the reach of most public art museums.
Tate – a group of British galleries with its origins in the late 19th-century – is working to rebalance a collection long dominated by white male artists. It has purchased more works by women than men in every year since 2019.
The Pérez donation includes works by artists from Africa and the African diaspora, to be given to Tate over the coming years, and a multimillion-dollar endowment that will fund curators for African and Latin American art at Tate Modern.
Jorge Pérez, an Argentina-born real estate developer, said it's important that art from Africa and Latin America 'get the exposure in great museums, in great cities of the world, which they haven't had.'
The Pérez family has given more than $100 million to Miami's public art museum, now called the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
'Iva' hung for years on the bedroom wall in the couple's Miami home, and Jorge Pérez said parting with it was wrenching.
It went on display the morning after President Donald Trump announced tariffs on U.S. trading partners, with global divisions on many minds.
Jorge Pérez, a former friend of Trump who has criticized the president's policies, said the importance of art is that it 'connects people."
'It connects people of all types, and makes people understand cultures that are not theirs, and see not only the differences, but the similarities between cultures,' he said. 'And I think that's beautiful.'
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