Southampton - The Parrish Art Museum announces a strong start to 2012, with recent gifts paving the way to the fall 2012 opening of its new Herzog & de Meuron designed building in Water Mill. The Parrish has recently received major contributions to its Capital Campaign, important grants for the installation of its permanent collection, and key art acquisitions.

Dorothy Lichtenstein, The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, and the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation have made major gifts to the Capital Campaign, moving the Museum closer to the fundraising target for its new home. The Museum has now raised more than 85 percent of the funds needed for completion of the $26.2 million project.

Construction is moving forward both inside and outside the new building, with glazing, plumbing, electrical work, HVAC systems, specialty exterior finishes, insulation, and roofing well underway. Concrete work is completed and all interior metal framing is in place. The new Parrish will be the first art museum built on the East End of Long Island in more than a century and will be the cultural centerpiece and most recognizable architectural landmark in the region.

The Parrish will open the doors to its new building with the first-ever permanent installation of works from its outstanding collection. Important grants for the Permanent Collection Installation and Interpretation Program were given to the Parrish by The National Endowment for the Arts and the Henry Luce Foundation.

"The Parrish is so fortunate, and deeply grateful, for the amazing support shown to us by our community," says Parrish Art Museum Director Terrie Sultan. "The artists and collectors who have so generously helped us to continue to grow our wonderful collection ensure that the Museum continues to celebrate the creative legacy of this rich and diverse community. The new building in Water Mill will give us a beautiful space to showcase our dynamic, growing collection, and present engaging special exhibitions."

Ranging in date from the 19th century to the present, the Parrish's holdings include more than 2,600 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by many of America's most influential artists. Important works in the Parrish's holdings will be highlighted, including William Merritt Chase, American landscape painting, Fairfield Porter, Esteban Vicente and his circle, and other important modern and contemporary artists.

The "Campaign for Art" gathered steam in 2011, as the generosity of collectors and artists enabled the addition of more than 30 art works to the Museum's holdings, most of them by East End artists. Recent gifts include Louise Nevelson's "Untitled" (ca. late 1970s), donated by Arne and Milly Glimcher, and Michelle Stuart's "Islas Encantadas Series: Materia Prima II" (1981), a gift of Jacqueline Brody. Klaus Ottmann and Leslie Tonkonow gave Rainer Fetting's 1977 "Two Sunsets in East Hampton;" Christopher and Hannelore Schwabacher donated Roy Nicholson's "Toxic Garden I (Aconitum)" (2010); and Michael Rubinstein gifted Richard Kalina's "Succession" (1986) and Dorothea Rockburne's "Touchstone" (1987-1988). Rockburne, a former East End resident, was the subject of a major retrospective at the Parrish during the summer of 2011.

Other donations were made by Ashley Leeds and Christopher Harland (Keith Sonnier's "Palm: Saw Tooth Blatt," 2004); Regina and Lawrence Dubin (works by Gertrude Greene, Paul Jenkins, and Frederick Kiesler); Natalie Edgar Pavia (Philip Pavia's "Freefall, #2," 1959); Dr. and Mrs. Charles E. Falk (four works by Gary Falk); Dr. Alan Nevins (Fairfield Porter's "Portrait of L.M. Channing, Sr.," ca. 1970 and "Untitled (Interior)," ca. 1970); Paule Anglim (Esteban Vicente's "Untitled," ca. 1955); Mel Pekarsky (works by Lucio Pozzi, Robert Ryman, and Leon Polk Smith); and Jean Hoffman and Dan Welden ("Esteban Vicente," "Madrigal," 1982).

Thanks to funds provided by Alexander M. Guest, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Joanne Cassullo, and a partial gift of the artist and Salomon Contemporary, New York, the Museum acquired Michael Combs's "Spent Cases" (1998). The acquisition of Eric Freeman's "Red Inside Green" (2005) was made possible by the Calvin Klein Family Foundation, the Robert and Suzanne Cochran Family Foundation, Michèle and Steve Pesner, an anonymous donor, and a partial gift of the artist. Other artists who donated work during 2011 include Linda K. Alpern ("Skateboarders," East Hampton, 1998, Mabel D'Amico, "1999," and "Tiffany and Greenport Friends," 2004), Connie Fox (portfolio of three self-portrait sketches, 2007), Sheila Isham ("Cosmic Flight," 1987), Bill King ("Shirley, ca. 1950," and "Shirley, ca. 1970"), Roy Nicholson (two solarplate etchings, 2010), and Lucy Winton ("'700," 2010). These works will be on view in the New Acquisitions galleries when the Museum opens.

The Museum's programs are made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the property taxpayers from the Southampton School District and the Tuckahoe Common School District.

About the Parrish Art Museum
The Parrish Art Museum is located in Southampton, New York. Founded in 1897, the Museum celebrates the artistic legacy of Long Island's East End, one of America's most vital creative centers. Since the mid-1950s the Museum has grown from a small village art gallery into an important art museum with a collection of more than 2,600 works of art from the 19th century to the present. It includes such contemporary painters and sculptors as John Chamberlain, Chuck Close, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, Elizabeth Peyton, as well as such masters as Dan Flavin, Roy Lichtenstein, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and Willem de Kooning. The Parrish houses important collections of works by the American Impressionist William Merritt Chase and the post-war American realist Fairfield Porter. A vital cultural resource serving a diverse audience, the Parrish organizes and presents changing exhibitions and offers a dynamic schedule of creative and engaging public programs including lectures, films, performances, concerts, and studio classes for all ages. On July 19, 2010, the Parrish broke ground on a new building designed by internationally acclaimed Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. The 34,500-square-foot facility will triple the Museum's current exhibition space and allow for the simultaneous presentation of loan exhibitions and installations drawn from the permanent collection. The new building is expected to open in fall 2012.