Contemporary cache to MOMA

The Museum of Modern Art recently announced that it has received a gift of 174 works of contemporary art from Los Angeles-based collector Edward R. Broida. Valued by experts at around $50 million, the donation includes 108 paintings and sculptures, 54 drawings and 12 prints by artists such as Richard Artschwager, Mark di Suvero, Bruce Nauman, Richard Tuttle, Jennifer Bartlett, Elizabeth Murray and Martin Puryear. Best represented in the group are Philip Guston, Vija Celmins and Christopher Wilmarth, whose work Broida collected in depth. Guston, for instance, accounts for 12 paintings, 16 drawings and 8 prints. When asked by the press why the works had not gone to a Los Angeles institution, Broida expressed concerns that his collection did not fit into that of L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art, and that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is currently focused on the extensive holdings of collector Eli Broad, which will be installed in a newly constructed part of the museum.

A retired architect and real estate developer, Broida, 71, began collecting in the late 1970s and has amassed more than 700 works. In the 1980s, he planned a museum to display his holdings in New York's SoHo, but the project was never realized. MOMA is preparing an exhibition of the Broida works to open next summer.

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