Museums in NY & LA to Receive Collection of 63 Modern Works Including Van Gogh & Manet

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is set to receive its very first paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Édouard Manet. 

It would be part of a transformative public gift from the prestigious Pearlman Foundation.

The donation also includes works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alfred Sisley, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and Maurice Brazil Prendergast.

The Pearlman Foundation, which holds one of the most significant private collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Modernist art, is dividing its treasures among three major U.S. institutions: LACMA, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, and the Brooklyn Museum. 

Though each museum will own select works, they’ve committed to a sharing model, allowing the pieces to travel among the institutions when not on display.

“This doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to the public — we’re caretakers of it,” said Daniel Edelman, president of the Pearlman Foundation and grandson of collectors Henry and Rose Pearlman, who began amassing the collection in the mid-1940s.

To mark the transition, LACMA will host a major exhibition from February to July 2026 titled “Village Square: Gifts of Modern Art from the Pearlman Collection to the Brooklyn Museum, LACMA, and MoMA.” The show will present the entire collection before the works are distributed across the three museums.

The Brooklyn Museum will receive 29 works with a special focus on Pearlman’s Brooklyn roots and his mission to democratize access to art.

MoMA, known for its authority in drawings and prints, will receive 28 works, with emphasis on Paul Cézanne.

LACMA’s portion includes key pieces like Van Gogh’s and Manet’s, as well as several others from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.