A $5 Million Gift Lets Phoenix Collect Sri Lankan Art

Phoenix Art Museum has received $5 million from the philanthropist Sukumar Nagendran, and much of it points toward Sri Lanka. The money will make more room in the galleries the museum gives to art from Sri Lanka and the wider South Asian region, so a visitor will be able to see more of that work on the walls and in the cases. For readers who follow what changes hands, the more lasting part of the gift is that it also pays for acquisitions. That means new works can enter a public collection in Arizona, where anyone can see them. The gift also funds research by specialists in the field, the slow work of understanding objects that comes before a label or a catalog. Some of it goes to programs that open Sri Lankan art to museum visitors. Larger galleries, new acquisitions, study and public programs all serve the same purpose: one island's art gets a fuller and more permanent place in an American museum. Gifts like this are how a museum collection grows, one object and one gallery at a time.

With reporting from ARTnews.