Acquisitions span important historical works alongside recent pieces by leading contemporary artists, with a focus on contemporary photography.
The Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter) announced it acquired nearly 50 works by an interdisciplinary and intergenerational group of artists this year, enabling the Museum to expand its storytelling around American art and the evolution of American creativity. Spanning over 150 years of artmaking, the acquisitions include a rare work by sculptor Edmonia Lewis, a critically acclaimed double portrait by Cecilia Beaux, an iconic sculpture by Elizabeth Catlett, and a small-scale bronze work by John Rhoden, the first work by the artist to enter the Carter’s collection. Among the notable acquisitions, too, is a study for Seymour Fogel’s mural, The Challenge of Space (ca. 1964), still visible to the public on the Federal Building in Fort Worth, enshrining a centerpiece of the city’s history and culture in the Museum’s collection.
The Museum has also brought in key works to its collection that extend narratives around contemporary American art, deepening in particular its holdings of contemporary photography, including work from LaToya Ruby Frazier’s “Flint is Family in Three Acts” and Cara Romero’s “First American Girl.” The acquisition of Chuck Ramirez’s full series “Seven Days,” featured in the Carter’s exhibition Seven Days: The Still Lifes of Chuck Ramirez (on view through January 4, 2026) expands the Museum’s collection of still life art.
“This year’s acquisitions support the Carter’s ongoing mission to expand the stories our collection tells about the history of American creativity by extending the breadth of artistic perspectives it reflects,” said Scott Wilcox, Interim Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Carter. “From rare historical works to iconic modern pieces to contemporary and photographic works revealing wide-ranging viewpoints of the American experience, this continued broadening of the Carter’s holdings is critical to enabling the Museum to engage both new and familiar audiences with a comprehensive rendering of American art’s past, present, and future.”
Highlights of 2025 Acquisitions Include:
- Marriage of Hiawatha, ca. 1866, by Edmonia Lewis. One of the most notable sculptures by Lewis, the first Black and Indigenous sculptor to achieve international success, Marriage of Hiawatha marks the Carter’s first acquisition of Lewis’ poetic and sensitive work, with this version being the first of the subject Lewis ever made
- Untitled (Female Figure with Arms Raised), 1979, by Elizabeth Catlett. This work, whose form, stance, and gesture convey themes of strength, determination, and aspiration, represents Catlett’s lifelong passion and commitment to depicting women through her sculptural work.
- Mrs. John Frederick Lewis and Her Son, John Frederick Lewis, Jr., 1908, by Cecilia Beaux. This full-length double portrait, rendered in the grand manner style, exemplifies Beaux’s distinctive psychological portraiture practice and belongs to a group of seven portraits Beaux painted between 1898 and 1908 that brought her critical acclaim and widespread renown.
- White Out: A Monumental Arch to American History, 2021, by Sandow Birk. Part of Birk’s ongoing series, “Imaginary Monuments,” which the artist began in 2007 during an artist residency at the Smithsonian, this etching offers a view of American history through the achievements of Americans of color.
- Mural Study – Fort Worth Mural, ca. 1964, by Seymour Fogel. This study for Fogel’s mural, The Challenge of Space (ca. 1964), in the Federal Building on Taylor Street in Fort Worth, demonstrates the influence of the Space Race era on Fogel’s abstract works, and reflects the impact of Fort Worth, its history, and its community.
- The Flint Water Treatment Plant, Flint, Michigan, 2016-2017, by LaToya Ruby Frazier. Part of Frazier’s series “Flint is Family in Three Acts,” this photograph brings attention to the now-compromised infrastructure of Flint, Michigan, through which polluted water infiltrated the city in 2014, conveying how the industrialization of the U.S. landscape, once associated with prosperity and national wellbeing, has become now synonymous with the neglect of the working class.
- Seven Days: Birthday Party, Seven Days: Breakfast Tacos, Seven Days: Dia de los Muertos, Seven Days: Super Bowl at Lloyd’s, Seven Days: KFC, Seven Days: Rancher Plate, and Seven Days: Tex-Mex, 2003, by Chuck Ramirez. This series of seven color-filled, maximalist still lifes featured in the Carter’s current exhibition Seven Days: The Still Lifes of Chuck Ramirez (on view through January 4, 2026) explores issues of consumerism, identity, and hospitality by depicting what is left after dinners and parties are over and guests have gone home.
- Reclining Figure, 1963, by John Rhoden. This small-scale bronze is the first work by Rhoden to enter the Carter’s collection, exemplifying the artist’s unique figural style inspired in part by his travels through Asia and Africa.
- Amber Morningstar and Julia & Joslynn, 2019, by Cara Romero. From Romero’s series “First American Girl,” which draws inspiration from the American Girl doll brand, these works act as a counterpoint to the Euro-American dolls by providing an Indigenous viewpoint on womanhood and motherhood.
- Indian Portrait in Roma and Hollywood Cowboy in Roma, 1978, by Fritz Scholder. Rendered through etching and aquatint processes and displaying a flat Pop Art aesthetic, these two large-scale prints reflect Scholder’s use of physiognomic distortions to critique cultural stereotypes and the representations of Indigenous people in Hollywood and Western culture.
- Study for Red Staircase No. 1, 1944, by Ben Shahn. Created by Shahn as the study for one of his most important paintings, The Red Stairway (1944), this work represents the artist’s response to the horrors of World War II, evoking destruction, hope, and the endurance of the human spirit.
- 110th St. Central Park, Harlem, 1960s, by Shawn Walker. A powerfully concise visual summary of the triumphs and tragedies of the American Civil Rights Movement, this image of an African American boy holding an American flag also serves as a portrait of the perennial uncertainty and promise of adolescence.
To learn more about the Carter, visit cartermuseum.org.