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Newsletter - Spring 2002
Acquisitions

Diamond pastel

A vibrant pastel drawing by the New York artist Stuart Diamond has recently been added to the collection, thanks to the generosity of Renee Conforte McKee ('62) and her husband David.
The drawing is especially welcome as a counterpoint to Diamond's more familiar wooden constructions, one of which came to the museum in 1985 as a gift from Chicago collectors James and Jetta Norris Jones ('47). The new pastel elucidates perfectly the interplay between the artist's two-dimensional works and his exuberant collageassemblages. As was noted in a 1979 review in Art in America, "What distinguishes Diamond's constructions is the way he brings the vocabulary of painting, gradations of color, nuanced brushwork, and illusions of recessions or projections to the physical reality of his pieces. Real edges coexist with rendered edges. Continuous passages reunify the different materials or, conversely, large physical surfaces are painted to resemble fragments of paintings. The results are images saturated with sentiment; as gritty, yet tender as early Schwitters."

Japanese scrolls

Hanging scrolls with figures of Taishakuten and Niten

The physical condition of a work of art is normally a central issue for museum staff members when potential gifts or purchases come under consideration. However, with a pair of Buddhist scrolls that were recently offered to the museum, it was decidedly not a concern. Sondra Castile ('58) and an anonymous donor recently presented the museum with two important 16th-century scrolls that were conserved under Ms. Castile's direction in her conservation studio in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The newly remounted scrolls depict two of the twelve Juniten, or heavenly beings, that originated in India. These Hindu gods were subsequently assimilated and transformedin the Buddhist pantheon, where they played a prominent role in the practice of esoteric Buddhist rituals for the protection of the nation and the promotion of prosperity.