The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is pleased to announce new acquisitions to its collection. Through purchase and gifts from generous donors from 2023 to 2024, the Museum accessioned 62 works by 34 artists. This group of artworks demonstrates how SJMA continues to advance its collecting strategy by focusing on gender parity, cultural diversity, and artistic innovation, while proactively acquiring socially relevant contemporary art. 

“Art reveals connections between ourselves and others—locally and across the globe,” said S. Sayre Batton, Oshman Executive Director at SJMA. “These extraordinary new acquisitions bring critical perspectives for our visitors and the greater public. We are eternally grateful to our supporters and donors who entrust SJMA as the steward of these objects. I am excited to share them with our audiences.” 

Recent rounds of acquisitions have expanded the Museum’s collection with artists from historically underrepresented communities. New to the collection are Latinx artists Guillermo Galindo, Yolanda López (1942–2021), and Guadalupe Rosales and Indigenous artists Teresa Baker, Sky Hopinka, and Christine Howard Sandoval. A selection of accessioned works by Galindo and Hopinka are on view in Seeing through Stone, a multi-sited exhibition that highlights global networks of care and abolitionist world-building. Works by artists with disabilities were also recently acquired by the Museum. Acquired at SJMA’s ArtPick in 2023 was Christine Sun Kim’s sound installation One Week of Lullabies for Roux (2018), where the Deaf artist invited seven trusted friends to create lullabies to help soothe her hearing newborn in alignment with what the artist describes as a “sound diet.” Gifted from the collection of Katie and Amnon Rodan is an untitled towering and dynamic drawing by Dan Miller, a renowned self-taught artist with autism based in the Bay Area. 

Acquisitions from 2023 and 2024 include work by a wide range of mid-career and established artists who reflect the innovative ethos and cultural diversity in the region. Artists new to the collection are Martha Atienza, Craig Coleman (1961–1994), Mark di Suvero, Tara Donovan, Shilpa Gupta, Tishan Hsu, Joseph Kosuth, Tomokazu Matsuyama, Danielle Mckinney, Joan Moment, Gladys Nilsson, Sheila Pinkel, Byron Randall (1918–1999), Lucas Samaras (1936–2024), Hend Samir, Elias Sime, and Sarah Sze. Some of these artists’ practices engage in dialogue with global contemporary issues. In Sime’s Tightrope: Behind the Processor #5 (2023), the Addis Ababa-based artist used reclaimed consumer electronics and electrical wires to create a vividly colorful, large-scale relief. 

SJMA has also expanded its holdings with additional work by collection artists Clayton Bailey (1939–2020), Huma Bhabha, Andrea Bowers, Alexander Calder (1898–1976), Chitra Ganesh, Patrick Nagatani (1945–2017), Dennis Oppenheim (1938–2011), and Clare Rojas. Last year, SJMA received major gifts of objects by Calder including handcrafted jewelry and a stabile from the collections of Megan L. Hayes and Reed Zars and the Lipman Family Foundation. Some of the gifts carry connections to the city of San José, such as a brooch originally worn by Janet Gray Hayes, the artist’s niece-in-law, during her term as San José’s mayor. A selection of the accessioned objects is on view in the current exhibition Calder: at home, among friends through August 3, 2025. 

Donations of artworks or support funds were made by: Paul Bridgewater, Lorna Meyer Calas and Dennis Calas, Laura Chrisman, the Collection Committee, Council of 100, Docent Council, Liza Dodd, Brook Hartzell and Tad Freese, Kathryn Funk, Megan L. Hayes and Reed Zars, D'Arcy and Jim Kirkland, Wanda Kownacki, Robin Liebes, Lipman Acquisitions Fund and Lipman Family Foundation, Geraldine and Marco Magarelli, Nicki and Pete Moffat, Joan Moment, Amy Oppenheim in honor of Dennis Oppenheim, Francisco Alfredo Pellas IV Collection, Sheila Pinkel as part of the Museum Project, Katie and Amnon Rodan, and ChanWoo Son Collection. 

For the full list of recent acquisitions at SJMA, go to the Museum’s collection database at sjmusart.org/embark.

SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART 

The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum dedicated to inclusivity, new thinking, and visionary ideas. Founded in 1969 by artists and community leaders, its dynamic exhibitions, collection, and programs resonate with defining characteristics of San José and the Silicon Valley—from its rich diversity to its hallmark innovative ethos. The Museum offers lifelong learning for school children and their educators, multigenerational families, creative adults, university students and faculty, and community groups. SJMA is committed to being a borderless museum, essential to creative life throughout the diverse communities of San José and beyond. 

SJMA is located on the Plaza de Cesar Chavez at 110 South Market Street in downtown San José, California. The Museum is open Thursday 4–9pm; Friday 11am–9pm; Saturday–Sunday 11am–6pm. Admission is $20 for adults, $15 for seniors, and free to members, college students, youth and children ages 17 and under, and school teachers (with valid ID). Admission is free from 6–9pm on the first Friday of every month. For up-to-date information, call 408.271.6840 or visit SanJoseMuseumofArt.org.