MAM's Permanent Collection

In 1995, as the CFA completed its tenth anniversary year, it engaged in a long-range planning process involving thousands of Miamians.  Among the decisions made as a result of that process was to change the institution's name to Miami Art Museum and focus on collecting and exhibiting art of the 20th and 21st centuries, with an emphasis on art from the Western Hemisphere. The determination to focus on modern art was based on the conviction that this was the area in which the museum could most successfully achieve its goals, given the nature of private collections in the Miami area and the market value of more historical works.

From 1996 to 2005, under the leadership of Founding Director Suzanne Delehanty, the new MAM made important steps towards its goal, growing its collection from nothing to nearly 300 works of art-a number which quickly grew to nearly 500 by mid-2007.

Carrie Mae Weems MayFlowers from May Days Long Forgotten, 2002 C-print

Odili Donald Odita In Between, 2002 Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 104 '/4 inches

Periodically, the museum was also able to find donors to contribute funds to acquire works of art the staff felt were important to have represented. In 2000, for example, Suzanne Delehanty located an edition of Marcel Duchamp's famous Boîte-en-valise (Box in a Valise), the portable mini-retrospective that Duchamp assembled and released in various forms from 1942 to 1968. Knowing that Duchamp's influence on 20th-century art was vitally important to represent in MAM's collection and that the Boîte-en-valise provided a unique way of conveying the breadth of the artist's achievement, Delehanty brought together three donors-Lang Baumgarten, Mimi Floback and Sally Ashton Story-to contribute the funds to acquire the piece.

With the exception of the Duchamp, the museum has generally sought to raise purchase funds to acquire works from MAM exhibitions. This has allowed the museum to more actively represent its exhibition history and acquire works that reflect the cultural diversity of South Florida. Among these were Ann Hamilton's film installation lineament (1994/96), María Fernanda Cardoso's 1992 Cementerio-jardin vertical (Cemetery-Vertical Garden), Janine Antoni and Paul Ramírez-Jonas' Always New, Always Familiar (2000), two self-portrait works on paper by Chuck Close, and Carrie Mae Weems' video, May Days Long Forgotten (2002).  A significant number of purchased works were commissioned pieces from MAM's innovative New Work exhibitions, including two large-scale photographs by Miami artist Naomi Fisher, Odili Donald Odita's painting In Between (2002) and Russell Crotty's Venus, Jupiter, Canopus over Payahokee (2004). 

Beginning in 2005, when the museum acquired more than 50 works, MAM's collecting activity increased dramatically. This upsurge is largely attributable to a pair of generative events. The first was the 2004 passage of a county general obligation bond that resulted in the allotment of $100 million for the construction of a new, free-standing MAM building. The second was the establishment of MAM's Collectors Council, a 40-member group whose annual dues are devoted entirely to the acquisition of art works. Under the leadership of collector Dennis Scholl, the group has focused on early- and mid-career artists selected by MAM's curators. The funds donated by the Council have given MAM's curators an unprecedented opportunity to shape the long-term growth of the collection.

In 2006, MAM's new Director, Terence Riley, encouraged MAM's trustees to use the institution's tenth anniversary as the occasion to build the museum's holdings of established artists. Kicking off the initiative was New York-based collector, curator and gallerist Charles Cowles' decision to follow through on a gift he had long been contemplating: 101 photographs of MAM's choice from his collection of almost a thousand. Spanning 1901 to the present, the girt broadened the collection's historical base and gave MAM a solid foundation for its future collection of photographic works.

Among the works promised as part of MAM's Power of Ten anniversary campaign were La Chevelure (The Mane), a 1945 painting by Wifredo Lam, the Cuban master who married Modernist form with the Afro-Cuban subject matter of his native land. Lam has long been considered a pivotal exemplar of the cross-cultural hybridization that has been so central to 20th century art and to MAWS mission.  Works by the Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar and Miami-based José Bedia, both of whom were featured in solo exhibitions in the days when MAM was still the CFA, were also donated. This gift of two major 1987 paintings and their preparatory studies, En carne (In Flesh) and En espíritu (In Spirit) by Carlos Alfonzo, the Cuban-born artist who died of AIDS in Miami in 1991, and the photographic triptych, Waterlilies After Monet (2005), by Vik Muniz both acknowledged large-scale traveling exhibitions that had been organized by the museum. In addition, Ella Fontanals Cisneros promised to MAM a major new video installation, Triangle of Need, by Los Angeles-based artist Catherine Sullivan. A strong expression of faith in MAM's future was the gift of three major outdoor pieces for the museum's new home in Museum Park: Fernand Lèger's 1951-52 Femmes au Perroquet (Women and Parrot), Niki de Saint Phalle's 20-foot tall Red Nana (1995), both donations of Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, and Doug Aitken's outdoor projection installation sleepwalkers (2007), a gift of the Arison Arts Foundation.

Increasingly, the "Dream Collection" of MAM's early days is becoming a reality.