The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, has announced a gift of 70 artworks from a local couple who prefer to remain anonymous, including paintings, sculpture, watercolors, drawings, prints, and photographs. 

The largest gift in the museum’s 112-year history includes a “substantial leadership grant” toward the New Bruce building campaign. The museum will undergo an $60 million renovation and expansion, doubling its size to include new, modern, and spacious galleries for exhibitions and installations, as well as state-of-the art spaces for education and community events. The New Bruce is scheduled to open in March 2023, with the addition of more than 12,000 square feet of gallery space in the William L. Richter Art Wing, including a 4,500-square-foot gallery for changing exhibitions and five new galleries for the growing permanent art collection.

The donated art collection focuses on the European and American figural tradition from the 1870s to the 1990s, including works by Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore, and Andrew Wyeth.

“It is an extraordinarily rich collection that will transform the Bruce Museum, giving us a deep stake in European and American Impressionism, Modernism, and Realism,” said Robert Wolterstorff, the museum’s Susan E. Lynch Executive Director and CEO. “This visionary gift will make the Bruce a place to experience again and again. Works like these will become old friends that you seek out each time you visit. And they will become vital to our education and public programs. Great works of art such as these will change your life, the lives of your kids, the life of this community.” 

“We have collected these artworks simply because we think they are beautiful and we enjoy seeing them every day in our home,” the donors said. “We have lived in Greenwich a long time and what better place to share our collection with the community than the exciting New Bruce.” 

(Photo Credit: Getty Images/kevinjeon00)