The Brooklyn Museum's collection grew by nearly 600 artworks acquired between December 2024 and October 2025, the institution announced on December 9, 2025. Per the museum's press release, the acquisitions cut across its curatorial departments, from Asian art and photography to contemporary painting, sculpture and design.
Contemporary art anchors the roster. Sarah Sze's Cave Painting (2024), a relief in silicone and wood, and Nicole Eisenman's bronze Three Walkers (2019), the gift of Stephanie and Tim Ingrassia, enter the collection alongside Robin Rhode's video Parabolic Bike (2022), acquired jointly with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Paul Pfeiffer's Red Green Blue (2022), a joint acquisition with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Christian Marclay's Doors (2022), bought with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, was on view at the time of the announcement and inaugurates the Brooklyn Museum's first gallery dedicated to the moving image.
Older departments fared nearly as well. A photography gift from Greg and Clark Wakabayashi, the children of the late fashion photographer Hiro, brought prints by Richard Avedon, Bill Brandt and Irving Penn, among them Avedon's 1969 portrait of Andy Warhol. Asian art additions include Ahn Jeung-geun's Calligraphy (1909) and Soga Shohaku's Lakeside Landscape (around 1760-68), while David MacDonald's Beaded Nyama Form (1979) is scheduled to join the design galleries in February 2026. Jenny Holzer's HEAP (2012), a text-based installation, is on view.
Related stories: Brooklyn Navy Yard brings three public art commissions back to Flushing Avenue · MoMA PS1 goes free for its 50th anniversary year.
Director Anne Pasternak, in the announcement, credited the museum's benefactors for a collection that she said continues to inspire wonder while probing historical narratives. The museum is also building holdings of African and African diaspora art ahead of dedicated galleries scheduled to open in 2027.
For the city's art public, the acquisitions are a down payment on visible change rather than a statistic: several works are already on the walls, MacDonald's sculpture reaches the design galleries within weeks, and the African and diaspora purchases will shape whole rooms from 2027. The quieter story is method: by sharing purchases with museums in Washington and Los Angeles, the Brooklyn Museum is buying in consortium, a structure that stretches acquisition budgets and ties the collection to institutions far beyond the borough.