Collections

The Permanent Collection at the Martin Museum of Art comprises approximately 1500 artworks generously donated by artists, collectors, and corporations or purchased with acquisition funds. The Martin Museum collects artwork to support its mission, the academic and artistic scholarship of its students and faculty, and to further the enjoyment and understanding of art throughout Waco and Central Texas.

The Permanent Collection features illuminated manuscripts from the 13th century, European printmaking, 19th-century Japanese woodcut prints, Modern and Contemporary American Art, and more.

The Martin Museum's most recent acquisitions include works by American photographers Imogen Cunningham and Lorna Simpson.

Collections Spotlight:

Mauricio Lasansky (1914-2012)

Mauricio Lasansky was born October 12, 1914, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His parents were Jewish Eastern Europeans who immigrated to Argentina. Lasansky's father worked as a banknote engraver. At nineteen, Lasansky began to study painting, sculpture, and printmaking at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires. He was soon appointed director of an art school in Cordoba, Argentina, and accumulated several notable international awards.

In 1943, he was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, the first of five, and spent more than a year studying prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Two years later, he was appointed lecturer in printmaking at the University of Iowa, where he would work for the next forty years before retiring in 1984.

Lasansky was best known for his printmaking technique that used multiple plates, a full range of colors, and enormous scale. He was instrumental in the revaluation of printmaking as a creative, rather than reproductive, process

His work explores themes of war and violence often centered around WWII and the Holocaust. His most notable body of work, Nazi Drawings, consists of thirty-three drawings created between 1961 and 1966. They were subsequently displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art a year later.

Lasansky died on April 2, 2012, in Iowa City, Iowa, at ninety-seven. Inspired by Lasansky's teachings, his students created printmaking departments in universities around the country. His works are the subject of over 160 solo exhibitions and reside in more than 100 university and gallery collections.

Martin Museum Collection and the Kaddish series

Lasansky produced another series, Kaddish, which continues his commentary focused on the aftermath of the Holocaust through reflecting on the experience of grief, mourning, survival, moving forward, and remembrance. Kaddish is named after the Jewish mourning prayer and consists of eight prints that include symbolism from different religions. Familiar symbols are found throughout these works. They include images of a dove, a figure below, and a seven-digit number visible in each piece. The numerical figure likely represents the number of Jewish people killed in the Holocaust. However, none of the numbers match in the series, making it even more striking. Each piece could represent one life or even a count that is ever-increasing. 

Kaddish #4 (1978) depicts a large dove with blue accents, sitting above a scene of blue floral bouquets and a young girl. She has a frightened or surprised expression on her face as she puts her hands to her mouth. Green leaves crest on her face, and small colorful shapes appear around the forms of the dove and girl. Both girl and dove's gaze confront the viewer, almost staring back or, perhaps, beyond to something horrendous. The number 61023114 appears, in light gray/blue, in the lower right corner of the piece. 

This particular work in the series is unique as it depicts a young girl and floral elements. In contrast, other pieces in the series showcase men or other representative figures. The girl appears to be a child, a representation of innocence, hidden in flowers and leaves. Her horror reminds the viewer that the victims and survivors of the Holocaust were of many different ages, genders, beliefs, and walks of life. 

The Martin Museum of Art owns all eight works of the Kaddish series and four other works by Lasansky. The series showcases the observer, the perpetrator, the bystanders, and the survivors as they process the events. These works remind us of those lost and of the far-reaching effects of these historical events. In this series, Lasansky encourages conversation between the viewer and how they process emotions related to something so horrific in world history.