Celebrate LBMA's 2025 Acquisitions at LBMA Downtown

Shapes, Places, and Faces: New Acquisitions 2025 presents a selection of artworks acquired by the Long Beach Museum of Art during the Museum’s 75th year. Featuring artists from California and beyond, the exhibition showcases works that explore shape, place, and identity through a variety of materials and artistic approaches.

A significant number of recent acquisitions are three-dimensional objects that draw attention to material, texture, and form while often blurring the line between functional objects and sculpture. A donation of 43 eclectic teapots from collector Ralph Allen Massey highlights ceramic artists from across the United States, particularly those from the Midwest. Additional works from this gift are on view at the Anderson House on the Museum’s Ocean Boulevard campus. In contrast to the teapots’ varied forms and bright colors, Ruenell Foy Temps’ sculptures present a more cohesive design approach and emphasize simple form.

Works such as Greg Ito’s The Winds of Change and Daniela Soberman’s Sunning on the Sidewalk explore ideas of place, location, home, and belonging. Others, including Ryan Schneider’s Jester, Fool, or Joker and Tom Herberg’s large-scale untitled paintings, engage themes of nature, humanity, and the environment. Mark Bennett’s Home of Gilligan (Gilligan’s Island) draws from popular culture and mass media, while Sister Mary Corita’s prints incorporate advertising elements to communicate messages of peace and social justice. Each of these works considers how people relate to the spaces they inhabit and experience the world around them.

Portraiture and figurative works further expand the exhibition’s exploration of identity and human presence. Two portraits by Don Bachardy are notable for depicting the donors, emphasizing the relationship among artists, collectors, and the Museum’s supporters. Together, these new acquisitions reflect the breadth and diversity of the Museum’s permanent collection and offer visitors opportunities to discover personal connections with the objects on view.

Tom Herberg
Don Bachardy
Mark Bennett
Greg Ito
Sister Mary Corita
Alexander Calder
Ryan Schneider
Daniela Soberman
Ruenell Foy Temps
Elizabeth Scott
Oleg and Elena Gorbachevski
Marilee Hall
Madeline Kaczmarczyk
Kazuko Matthews
Walter Reiss
William Shinn
Peter Shire
Fred Stodder
Nancy Wright
Irina Zaytceva

Celebrate LBMA's 2025 Acquisitions at LBMA Downtown

Ryan Schneider, Jester, Fool, or Joker, 2024
Oil on wood
69 x 12 x 12 inches
Gift of Adam Miller and Devon Oder 2025.10