Britain's Tate Modern art museum on Thursday revealed a "transformational" donation that its director calls "one of the most important" works it has received, reports the BBC. "Iva," a 20-foot-long triptych by American abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell, was gifted to the museum by philanthropists Jorge M. Pérez and Darlene Pérez. The painting, named after Mitchell's German Shepherd, had hung for years in the couple's Miami bedroom, and Jorge Pérez says it was painful to part with it. But "our hope is always that our art is seen by the highest number of people. The Tate has huge viewership, millions and millions of people coming in," he tells the BBC.
The painting went on display beside Mark Rothko's renowned murals, which Tate director Maria Balshaw says are among the museum's "crown jewels." Mitchell's painting "will truly shine" alongside them, she said. Since her death in 1992, prices for Mitchell's work, such as a $29 million sale at Christie's in 2023, have soared, making them inaccessible to most public art museums, reports the AP. Jorge Pérez told the Art Newspaper that "the large American museums typically have good collections of Joan Mitchell and this fills a gap at the Tate." UK Arts Minister Sir Chris Bryant called the gift a "spectacular" act of generosity, per Art News.
The Pérezes will also donate works by artists from Africa and the African diaspora and have created a hefty endowment to fund the curation of Latin American and African art. "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," said Jorge Pérez, an Argentina-born real estate developer. (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)
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