The Saint Louis Art Museum has announced a commitment of twenty-two major works of art from Emily Rauh Pulitzer.

The gift, among the most significant in the museum's history, primarily comprises paintings and sculpture by twentieth-century European and American artists and includes major works by seventeen artists, such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Constantin Brancusi, Joan Miró, Philip Guston, Ellsworth Kelly, and Andy Warhol, as well as more recent works such as sculpture by Rachel Harrison and Gedi Sibony. Specific works include Picasso's Woman in a Red Hat, Braque's The Mantelpiece, Warhol's Self Portrait, and Guston's Dark Room. The works will be transferred to the museum at or before Pulitzer's death, as she chooses.

Originally from Cincinnati, Pulitzer served as assistant curator of drawings at the Fogg Art Museum — part of the Harvard Art Museums — before moving to St. Louis in 1964 to work as the curator of the Saint Louis Art Museum (then known as the City Art Museum). In all, the museum has received nearly a hundred and fifty works of art from Pulitzer, her late husband, Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., and his first wife, Louise Vauclain Pulitzer, who died in 1968.

"As an encyclopedic museum, the Saint Louis Art Museum plays a unique role in the lives of St. Louis residents, illuminating art from a great variety of places and historical eras," said Emily Pulitzer. "I am delighted to enrich the museum's collection of modern and contemporary art with this gift and look forward to seeing it resonate with other works in the museum's diverse collections."

"Emily Pulitzer has few equals as a curator, board member, and generous, public-spirited donor to the great civic and educational institutions in this country," said Min Jung Kim, the Barbara B. Taylor Director of the Saint Louis Art Museum. "Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this gift is its surpassing quality. These are all masterpieces, ranging from the early twentieth-century Cubism of Braque to the late twentieth-century Minimalism of Kelly and the Pop-Art of Warhol. These works are, by themselves, an art historical primer. They will become part of the Saint Louis Art Museum's permanent collection and, joining other works given by the Pulitzer family, will cement this institution's reputation as one of the premier art museums anywhere."

(Photo credit: Fresh Art Photography)