In August 2019 the Baltimore Museum of Art announced a new initiative, 2020 Vision. Under this project, the museum dedicated the calendar year of 2020 to programming and exhibitions that focused on women artists and only collected works by women. With the end of 2020, the museum has wrapped up the initiative with a final announcement of 33 additional acquisitions.
The 33 recent acquisitions include works by Betye Saar, Margaret Burroughs, and Joyce J. Scott, among others. The recent acquisitions also include the first major contemporary paintings by Native American artists in the museum’s collections: “Fantasy for a January Day” by Cherokee artist Kay WalkingStick and “Echo Map I” by Salish/Cree/Shoshone artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith.
In total, the museum added 65 new pieces to its collection by 49 women artists throughout the year. For approximately forty of these artists, it was the first time that their work entered the museum’s collection. Cumulatively, the Baltimore Museum of Art spent $2.57 million on these acquisitions.
In a press release, Christopher Bedford, BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director, explained that although the 2020 Vision initiative has ended, the museum will remain dedicated to diversifying its collections. “As we continue to develop our collection, we remain focused on rectifying critical omissions of works by artists who are also women, Black, Indigenous, and persons of color from across the diaspora, within our own holdings and across art history more broadly,” Bedford said.