A remarkable 1916 portrait of French poet, artist, and intellectual Jean Cocteau painted by renowned Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani is heading to the Brooklyn Museum as part of an extraordinary donation from the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation. This masterpiece is among dozens of significant modern, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist artworks that will be distributed to three major American museums.
The Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation announced on August 4 that its entire collection of 63 exceptional pieces will be shared among the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in Manhattan, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The collection features works by some of the most celebrated artists in history, including Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Edgar Degas.
The impressive collection was assembled by the late Henry Pearlman, who founded a cold storage installation company that achieved great success in the 1940s, and his wife Rose. According to the foundation's press statement, this generous gift reflects the couple's populist values and their commitment to sharing their collection for public enjoyment. The collection has been on loan to the Princeton University Art Museum since 1976.
The Pearlman Foundation carefully allocated its gift based on each institution's specific capabilities and priorities. The Brooklyn Museum will receive the largest portion, with 29 collection items including sculptures and paintings by French Expressionist Chaïm Soutine and Paul Gauguin, in addition to the coveted Modigliani portrait.
MoMA will receive 28 pieces, with a particular focus on works by Paul Cézanne, including several pieces from his celebrated Mont Sainte-Victoire series created between 1902 and 1906. Daniel Edelman, the foundation's president, explained that Cézanne's works were entrusted to MoMA because "it has one of the finest departments of drawings and prints that we know."
LACMA will receive six artworks, including a particularly significant acquisition: Vincent van Gogh's 1888 painting "Tarascon Stagecoach." This work marks a historic milestone as the first piece by the Dutch master to enter LACMA's collection.
Before these treasures join the permanent collections of the three major museums, they will embark on a special traveling exhibition titled "Village Square: Gifts of Modern Art from the Pearlman Collection." The exhibition will begin its journey at LACMA, running from February to July 2026, before moving to the Brooklyn Museum in the fall. MoMA will host the exhibition at a later date, though the specific timing has not yet been announced.
The foundation has established innovative guidelines with all three institutions to encourage flexible movement of artworks among them. "Our aim is to bring these major works to new audiences, allowing them to be seen in different contexts, reuniting our collection's works with one another on a regular basis, and perhaps even inspiring collectors and museums to consider new models for ownership of art," Edelman stated.
Other notable works in the donation include Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's "The Sacred Grove (Le bois sacré)" from 1884, which will join the Brooklyn Museum's collection, and Maurice Brazil Prendergast's "Sea and Boats" (circa 1907), heading to LACMA. MoMA will receive Cézanne's "Three Pears (Trois poires)" from around 1888-90, while LACMA will also acquire Wilhelm Lehmbruck's "Torso of a Young Woman" from 1910.
This distribution represents one of the most significant art donations in recent years, bringing world-class masterpieces to public institutions across the United States and ensuring that these cultural treasures will be accessible to diverse audiences for generations to come.
