Big Smiles Over A Big Gift To The MFA

We all love gifts, and typically, the bigger the better. That's why the Museum of Fine Arts was thrilled to announce on Saturday that it has received one of its largest and most significant gifts in history.

MFA Trustee Saundra Lane donated more than 6,000 photographs, including works by Charles Sheeler, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams, in addition to 100 works on paper and 25 paintings by American modernistists Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur G. Dove, Stuart Davis and John Marin.

The collection was assembled by Lane and her late husband William, but Saundra and William were not your typical art-collecting couple. The two formed relationships with the artists whose work they collected and were committed to promoting and sharing their work.

This donation has increased the Museum's photography collection by two-thirds, and while the Museum of Fine Arts has not released a dollar amount for the value of the total collection, they have estimated that it probably runs into "nine figures."

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