The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is set to receive a significant donation of European artworks, including its first-ever paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Edouard Manet.
The Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation announced on Monday that it will divide its entire collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and modern art between three U.S. museums: LACMA, the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
The Pearlman Collection was assembled by Henry Pearlman, a New York-based shipping industrialist and self-taught art collector.
For nearly five decades, the collection has been on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art Museum, where it has been studied and digitized.
The foundation is permanently gifting 63 works across the three institutions and that will include an ongoing rotation of the pieces through joint exhibitions.
LACMA, the largest art museum in the west coast, will receive six works from the collection, including Young Woman in a Round Hat (c. 1877–79) by Manet and Tarascon Stagecoach (1888) by Van Gogh.
Young Woman in a Round Hat by Manet (left) and Tarascon Stagecoach by Van Gogh (right). Courtesy of The Pearlman Foundation and Princeton University Art Museum.
“LACMA is deeply grateful to welcome these masterpieces to the museum’s collection, and especially for van Gogh and Manet, two towering figures of 19th-century art, whose paintings will be represented in our collection for the first time,” said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director.
Before the artworks are officially handed over, the full collection will travel as a public exhibition titled “Village Square: Gifts of Modern Art from the Pearlman Collection to the Brooklyn Museum, LACMA, and MoMA”.
The show will debut at LACMA from February to July 2026, giving Los Angeles audiences the opportunity to experience the Pearlman Collection in one place before the works are permanently dispersed.
Daniel Edelman, President of the Pearlman Foundation, said the three institutions were chosen not just for their collections but for their commitment to rethinking how art can be experienced by diverse publics.
“LACMA (was picked) for works that specifically enhance their ability to innovate around bringing art to where people are.” Edelman. “All three (museums) are committed to leading that challenge and inspiring others to meet it as well”.