Collection
The O’Brien Art Foundation and the Marty O’Brien Collection of American Art together form a repository of objects, archives, and histories for the study of underexamined narratives of 20th century American art. Our goal is to share these important works of art and make them available for public exhibitions. Furthering its charitable purposes, the Foundation oversees and stewards the O’Brien Collection in addition to maintaining its own growing collection. All works can be requested for loan to qualified institutions. Please visit Lending & Grants for information about making a loan request.
The collections combined contain over 1,100 objects spanning the mediums of painting, sculpture, works on paper, textiles, and prints. The print holdings span 1929 to 1964 while the full collection covers the period of 1890 to 1985. Although the collections offer a broad survey of American art created during this time, they primarily focus on artists who are less well known today but who were among American art’s key innovators and contributors—many of whom were once frequently exhibited or widely acclaimed. The Foundation aims to contextualize the works with the benefit of hindsight, study, and enduring resonance today.
Explore a selection of key acquisitions made in recent years, which reflect the evolving range and depth of our holdings.
The collections’ most extensive holdings include American Tonalism, Regionalism and American Scene, Abstract Expressionism, and printmaking from the era of the Great Depression through the experimentation of Atelier 17. A growing attention to collecting mid-20th century works includes a wide range of mediums and movements, from kinetic sculpture to craft and Minimalism to Pattern & Decoration. Although many works were created in traditional East Coast art centers, the collections also highlight art from lesser heralded areas, challenging the popular diminishment of art created elsewhere in the United States. These geographically diverse works reflect the unique regional characteristics that contributed meaningfully to the development of American art. Key attention to original framing intensions and period examples are also a highlight of our work.
Honoring the original presentation of each object is a key pillar of the Foundation’s work. In addition to expert conservation to maintain stable aging of materials, the Foundation supports object display with original and sourced period framing. Approximately seventy percent of the works are presented in original period frames, while the rest possess well researched reproduction frames. This ensures a dedication to maintain the artists’ intentions and the stylistic contexts contemporaneous to their practice.
View an ever-growing selection of artworks that reveal key insights into our collections.
Artists
Please contact us if you are interested in learning more about our holdings.
