NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale today announced the launch of the first phase of its new online collection catalogue that offers unprecedented access to over 2,000 of the 7,500 objects in its permanent collection. Now accessible on the NSU Art Museum website, nsuartmuseum.org, the online collection is part of the Museum’s efforts to enhance its digital resources and make them widely available to the public, scholars and students.
“With our new online collection we are opening our doors even wider and inviting the world to explore the exceptional scope and depth of NSU Art Museum,” said Bonnie Clearwater, director and chief curator. “During the 1970s, the founders of the Museum sought to represent South Florida’s diversity in the art works collected and exhibited. The collection continued to grow with this goal in mind.”
Today, NSU Art Museum is known for its significant collection of Latin American art, contemporary art with an emphasis on women, Black and Latinx artists, and African art that spans the 19th to the 21st-century, as well as works by American artist William Glackens, Danish artists who resisted German occupation during World War II and the international CoBrA group of artists that emerged in the war’s wake. The Museum draws from its collection for exhibitions exploring issues that resonate with the South Florida community and contribute to productive discussions that address identity, inequalities and injustices, encourage empathy and compassion, and inspire wonder.
The online site features a searchable database of a wide variety of media, along with curator notes, exhibition histories and bibliographic information. Visitors can submit their own search criteria or choose to browse among works displayed. They can also send queries directly from object pages to NSU Art Museum’s curatorial department. The Museum’s curatorial staff will continue adding entries to the online collection catalogue over the next two years.
NSU Art Museum’s online collection is made possible thanks to support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sansom Foundation, Stanley and Pearl Goodman, Linda Marks, and Joan and Stephen Marks.
Image credits (l to r): William J. Glackens, Sledding in Central Park, c. 1912. NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; bequest of Ira D. Glackens. Philip Guston, Afloat, 1975. NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; gift of Musa Guston. Mickalene Thomas, Portrait of Mama Bush 1, 2010. NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; promised gift of David Horvitz and Francie Bishop Good. Wifredo Lam, Sans titre (Untitled), 1959. NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; promised gift of Pearl and Stanley Goodman.
