Phoenix Art Museum receives $5m gift for new Sri Lankan and South Asian art galleries
The Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona has received a $5m gift from the philanthropist Sukumar Nagendran. The money will be used to expand its Asian art galleries and support acquisitions, scholarly research and public programmes focused on Sri Lankan art.
The expansion will increase the footprint of the museum’s Art of Asia galleries from around 6,000 sq. ft to 10,000 sq. ft through the renovation and repurposing of existing space. A new 2,000-sq.-ft Nagendran Gallery for the Art of Sri Lanka and South Asia will honour the donor and his long-standing relationship with the museum. Nagendran hopes the gift will deepen cultural understanding, inspire future generations and help preserve and elevate Sri Lankan art.
More than 4,000 historic and contemporary works in the museum’s more than 21,000-piece collection come from artists who live, work in or are from Asia, making Phoenix Art Museum a foremost institution for Asian art in the US.
