Macon and Joan Brock Collection of American Art to be Showcased at the Chrysler Museum of Art

The Chrysler Museum of Art announces the transformative exhibition A Shared Vision: The Macon and Joan Brock Collection of American Art, which will feature works recently gifted and promised to the Museum from the Brocks’ collection. Featuring more than 45 paintings, pastels, watercolors, and prints, this presentation showcases one of the most significant collections of American art assembled in the twenty-first century. The exhibition will be on view in the Museum’s Frank Photography Gallery from December 8, 2023, through March 10, 2024.

Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910), Girl with a Letter, 1879, Watercolor on paper, Promised gift to the Chrysler Museum of Art from the Macon and Joan Brock Collection of American Art

“The Brock Collection contains works of exceptional quality produced by the leading American artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,” said Corey Piper, PhD, the Chrysler’s Brock Curator of American Art. “Many of these works have long been known to scholars of American art, but will be seen here widely for the first time,” added Piper.

Spanning nearly one hundred years of American art, from just after the Civil War to the mid-twentieth century, the Brock Collection contributes a fresh look at one of the most vital and dynamic periods of American art. Works by a wide range of artists from Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, John La Farge, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, and John Singer Sargent, to Marsden Hartley, Max Weber, George Bellows, Charles Sheeler and Milton Avery chart a broad history of American art. Lesser-known figures like Mary Fairchild MacMonnies, Helen Corson Hovenden, and Sally Michel bolster the rich depth of the collection and propose new contours to the shape of American art history.

Charles Burchfield (American, 1893–1967), Hot Morning, 1915, Watercolor, gouache, and pencil on paper, Promised gift to the Chrysler Museum of Art from the Macon and Joan Brock Collection of American Art

“When Macon and I decided to focus our art collecting on American art we never anticipated how much fun we would have nor how much we would learn from the experience,” said Joan Brock. “We found it to be an incredibly invaluable journey that we both enjoyed immensely.”

Joan Brock, the first woman to chair the Chrysler Museum’s Board of Trustees, is a longstanding Museum supporter, as was her late husband, Macon Brock. This exhibition celebrates their generosity and vision, and represents the most transformative addition to the institution’s holdings since Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.’s foundational gift more than 50 years ago. The Brocks exercised great foresight in the construction of this collection for the public’s benefit and the gift now elevates the stature of the Chrysler Museum’s American art holdings and programs, helping to cement the Museum as a national leader in the exhibition, study and appreciation of American art.

The presentation will be accompanied by the publication of a comprehensive catalogue of the collection, edited by Piper, with essays written by the Museum’s curators and leading scholars of American art.

“Together the exhibition and catalog build upon a legacy of scholarship in American art at the Chrysler Museum, one that has been greatly enhanced by the generosity of Macon and Joan Brock,” said Erik Neil, Macon and Joan Brock Director of the Chrysler Museum of Art.

Mary Cassatt (American, 1844-1926), Gathering Fruit, ca. 1893, Drypoint, soft-ground and aquatint in colors, on paper, Museum purchase with funds given by the Macon and Joan Brock Collection of American Art, 2022.28

ABOUT THE CHRYSLER MUSEUM OF ART

The Chrysler Museum of Art is one of America’s most distinguished mid-sized art museums, with a nationally recognized collection of more than 30,000 objects, including one of the great glass collections in America. The core of the Chrysler’s collection comes from Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., an avid art collector who donated thousands of objects from his private collection to the Museum. The Museum has growing collections in many areas and mounts an ambitious schedule of visiting exhibitions and educational programs each season. The Chrysler has also been recognized nationally for its unique commitment to inclusion with its innovative gallery host program.

The Perry Glass Studio is a state-of-the-art facility on the Museum’s campus. The studio offers programming for aspiring and master artists alike in a variety of processes, including glassblowing, fusing, flameworking, coldworking and neon. 

In addition, the Chrysler Museum of Art administers the Moses Myers House, a historic house in downtown Norfolk, as well as the Jean Outland Chrysler Library. For more information on the Chrysler Museum of Art, visit chrysler.org.

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