![Large gallery room with white walls and gray floor tiles. Paintings hang on the walls and in the foreground is a green ceramic sculpture on a pedestal.](/sites/default/files/styles/16x9_full_default_1x/public/2024-04/Art%20of%20Americas_Spring_2023%20%2810%29.jpg?h=9f29b6fa&itok=t-i5XW9R)
Art of the Americas
The Art of the Americas collection includes more than 16,500 paintings, sculpture, photography, prints, decorative arts, and new media from the American hemisphere. The earliest paintings in the Zimmerli’s American collection date to the late eighteenth century, after New Brunswick and Rutgers University—then called Queen’s College—were established on Lenape land. Paintings and sculpture in the collection from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reflect the influence of local traditions and European academic training, as well as the development of an international art market catering to a largely wealthy clientele. Recent acquisitions of work by artists such as Chakaia Booker, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Coco Fusco, Geoffrey Hendricks, Roberto Lugo, Fanny Sanín, George Segal, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Joan Snyder, and David Wojnarowicz have significantly increased the representation of women, artists with roots in the Caribbean and Latin America, and local artists, including those who taught or studied at Rutgers. There is also a growing collection of contemporary prints and photographs with examples of work by Melvin Edwards, Catherine Opie, Juan Sánchez, Cindy Sherman, and Carrie May Weems, as well as examples of vernacular, fashion, and social documentary photography.
![Various small black organic shapes are connected by thin metal rods, somewhat like a constellation](/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_default_1x/public/2021-01/Amino%2081.020.047.jpeg?itok=JKZxiaqX)
![Small child sitting on a pink blanket in a grassy field, helicopters flying overhead](/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_default_1x/public/2021-02/Berman_2018_005_001.jpg?itok=oOYBbrG4)
![Sculpture made of found wooden objects including Coca Cola and Pepsi crates.](/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_default_1x/public/2021-04/Booker_2018_032_134.jpg?itok=iaqP24KN)
![Abstract painting of stained and spattered various colors of paint with lines from folding the canvas](/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_default_1x/public/2021-02/Gilliam_77_017_001.jpg?itok=1tt5R80V)
![Geometric painting composed of rectangles and triangles. Central portion is red cross with an orange rectangle at center.](/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_default_1x/public/2021-04/Sanin_2018_036_001.jpg?itok=6WN03bR3)
![Life-sized sculpture of an acrobat painted red, hanging from ceiling by a yellow rope near a skylight](/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_default_1x/public/2021-03/2018_006_004.jpg?itok=XC0RBOWP)
![Patches of varying shades of pink and white, with splotches of darker reds and the word "STILL" painted in several places](/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_default_1x/public/2021-03/Snyder_2021_001_001_2.jpg?itok=QS0ptMNj)
![Cubistic painting of two brown-skinned arms meeting to clink glasses in center; table with bottle and fruit in background](/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_default_1x/public/2021-05/ARTX_Tamayo_85_002_001.jpg?itok=_jbLlF7Q)
![Painting of moonlit scene with figure standing under two trees in a hilly landscape](/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_default_1x/public/2021-03/Tanner_1988_0063.jpg?itok=UWQGctT-)
![Painting of girl with dark hair in a white dress holding a basket of cherries and placing a bunch on a plate on a chair.](/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_default_1x/public/2021-05/ART_Williams_59_012_001.jpg?itok=3wm57ezk)
Leo Amino, Composition, 1953, Mahogany and wire, Gift of Mrs. Julie Amino, 81.020.047
Photo Peter Jacobs
Nina Berman, Helicopter Fly-by, 2006, Digital color print on paper, Gift of the artist, 2018.005.001
Chakaia Booker, Mother and Child, 1994, Wood, metal, and paint, Jersey City Museum Collection, gift of Jersey City Museum, Gift of Bill Hodges Gallery, Courtesy of the artist, 2018.032.134
Photo Peter Jacobs
Sam Gilliam, Breeze 1967, 1967, Acrylic on canvas, Class of 1921 Art Purchase Fund, © 2021 Sam Gilliam / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 77.017.001
Photo Peter Jacobs
Fanny Sanín, Composition No. 2, 2003, Acrylic and graphite on paper, Collection Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, Gift of the artist, 2018.036.001
Photo Peter Jacobs
George Segal, Red Acrobat, 1997, Plaster and rope, Gift of The George and Helen Segal Foundation, Inc., © 2021 The George and Helen Segal Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, 2018.006.004
Joan Snyder, Still, 2011, Oil, acrylic, paper maché, and mixed media (twigs, glass beads, cheesecloth, silk, burlap, rosebuds) on linen, Museum Purchase, with funds donated by Thea Samit and Sharon Siegel in support of women, 2021.001.001
Photo Peter Jacobs
Rufino Tamayo, The Toast, 1945, Oil on canvas, Gift of Lawrence Fertig, © 2021 Tamayo Heirs / Mexico / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 85.002.001
Photo Peter Jacobs
Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Good Shepherd, 1902, Oil on canvas, In memory of the deceased members of the Class of 1954, 1988.0063
Photo Peter Jacobs
Micah Williams, Girl in White with Cherries, 1830-1832, Oil on canvas, Gift of Anna I. Morgan, 59.012.001
Photo Jack Abraham