Recent Acquisitions: 2016 – 2021

As stewards of the state's art treasures, the South Dakota Art Museum collects, preserves, exhibits and interprets visual art to provide access and education, and to foster appreciation of the visual arts for the people of South Dakota and its visitors. The museum preserves artworks of aesthetic, cultural and historical significance to South Dakotans so these artworks will be available for the enjoyment and edification of future as well as current generations. This exhibition features a selection of several artworks recently acquired by the museum.

The South Dakota Art Museum has a rich collecting history, with more than 7,000 objects in its care-acquired over the course of its 50-year history. The collection is a living work of art itself—a dynamic and growing network of intersections between objects, people, cultures, places and time periods. Each artwork’s relevance and significance shift over time; each work informs the others when it joins the collection, creating new relationships and intersections.

The many people that helped create, support and shape the museum’s collection throughout its history are embodied in it as well. They’re alive in the artworks they helped to preserve for the benefit of the public. We thank them for all they’ve done to help the museum build such an impressive and well-preserved collection.

All the artworks in this exhibition joined the collection between 2016 and 2021. Although recently acquired their dates of creation range from c. 1899 – 2019. Sources for the acquisitions vary from work to work and include both gifts and works purchased by the museum.

The process of adding to the collection is extensive and involves multiple layers of review over the course of several months. It starts with a proposed acquisition that is vetted by museum staff for its quality, significance and relevance. It is then reviewed by the museum’s Collections Committee, who pass on the results of their recommendation to the museum’s Advisory Board for final consideration.

In addition to basic information about an artwork such as the artist’s name, artwork title and medium, the object labels for an artwork reveal both the year and how it was acquired. The museum uses a standardized system to assign an accession (object identification) number to each object. Towards the end of the artwork’s label you will see a number sequence divided by periods with four digits, then two, then additional digits. The first four digits represent the year the artwork was acquired by the museum. The credit line follows, which credits the source of the acquisition.

Learn more about this stellar exhibition

Sheila Agee, South Dakota Art Museum Collections Committee Chair, joins curators Jodi Lundgren and Taylor McKeown in celebrating recent acquisitions to the Museum's Permanent Collection and the artists and generous donors who made them possible. Listen in as they discuss works by Oscar Howe, Harvey Dunn, Ada Caldwell and many other important artists, historic and contemporary.