Dick Wolf is preparing a donation for the Met, which includes gifting more than 200 pieces. On top of that, Wolf is giving the institute a donation of unspecified money estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars. Overall, with this kind of money to dedicate two galleries in his honor.
Trips to The Met As a Young Child
New York City native Wolf said in a statement that his love of collecting first sparked through trips to the Met as a young child. “From the time I was eight years old, I would stop at the Met on my way home from school. This would happen two to three times a month – I would wander the galleries. It was a simpler time, there was no admission, you could walk in off the street”, he said a statement.
Wolf also added: “I’m sure most collectors would agree that seeing your art displayed in the world’s greatest museum is an honor”. Wolf accumulated decades’ worth of art. Much of it is from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries in Europe. Also, the pieces span he Renaissance and Baroque periods.
The donated pieces include encompass sculpture, painting, drawing, and decorative arts. Among them are some of the most appriciated art pieces. This includes a fifteenth-century Botticelli tondo of the Madonna and Child, and a sixteenth-century Orazio Gentileschi painting of the same subject. There is also a work by Gentileschi’s daughter, Artemisia, Susanna and the Elders.
Get the latest articles delivered to your inbox
Sign up to our Free Weekly Newsletter
Dick Wolf’s Rich Collection
Artemisia’s pieces dates back to o the middle of the same century. Also, it represents the same subject as the artist’s recently found masterpiece of the same name. Also included are paintings by Bronzino and Vincent van Gogh. There are also illustrations by seventeenth-century Bolognese artist Guercino, and the eighteenth-century Venetians Giovanni Battista and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo.
“The collection reflects Dick Wolf’s excellent connoisseurship and enduring dedication to the diverse artistic media of the periods”, said Met president Max Hollein in a statement. “Furthermore, the substantial financial contribution will provide critical support for the Met’s collection displays and scholarly pursuits”.
The endowed galleries will be in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Art. Currently known as the Quattrocento and Cinquecento Galleries, Galleries 500 and 503, respectively, will be renamed the Dick Wolf Galleries, and will host some of the works donated by Wolf alongside fifteenth and sixteenth-century sculptures and objects from the Met’s collection.
