RALEIGH - A gift of more than 100 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs by some of the 20th century's most important artists is headed to the N.C. Museum of Art instead of UNC-Chapel Hill.

Jim and Mary Patton, a couple with long ties to UNC, had originally intended their lifetime collection to go to UNC's Ackland Art Museum as a bequest. But the university's decision to rethink long-standing plans to expand the museum made the Raleigh museum a more attractive option. Without expansion, Ackland could not accommodate the gift.

The state museum in Raleigh has already begun to construct a large new gallery building, where it will exhibit much of the Patton collection. It is scheduled to open in April 2010. The Ackland won't entirely lose out: It will be able to borrow some of the art through long-term rotating loans, and the museum will receive several additional pieces from the couple.

"We are thankful for being able to collect this art and ... give it back to the world," Jim Patton said in a news release Wednesday. "I like the idea that these works that we have enjoyed over the years will give pleasure to other people."

The state museum's strong point has always been its collection of paintings by old European masters. In recent years it has been building its contemporary art holdings, and this gift will substantially boost that effort. These seminal works show the evolution of art in the past century as it went through abstract expressionism and then color field painting.

"It's a significant enhancement of the existing collection, which is important in its own right," said Larry Wheeler, director of the N.C. Museum of Art, on Wednesday. "It will add great strength to it -- some artists that we have not had in the collection, artists whose work is being highly sought in the market."

Kimerly Rorschach, director of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, which emphasizes contemporary works, said she didn't know which pieces would be included in the gift. "But it sounds like a wonderful gift," she said. "Who wouldn't want that?"

The promised art is the latest in a string of successes Wheeler has claimed for the museum, including the expansion, a large donation of Auguste Rodin sculpture, and several major financial contributions that will pay for impressive pieces of art.

Avid art collectors

The new gift is worth many millions. It comes from a couple who met when they were growing up in North Carolina. The Pattons live in Arizona and Colorado.

They traveled widely and began buying art they liked in the 1960s, not really becoming serious collectors for many years. In Washington, D.C., they befriended a museum curator named Charles W. Millard III, who became director of the Ackland in 1986. The couple's relationship with the Chapel Hill museum continued even after Millard retired, culminating in a 2001 exhibition of a small portion of the Patton collection. It was billed as a preview of what was to come.

As recently as 2006, the Ackland was still planning an expansion that would more than double its cramped 36,000 square feet. The museum has been in its current location since 1958 and has limited flexibility for exhibitions. But little money had been raised toward that end by the time Emily Kass arrived as the museum's new director in August 2006.

Kass and other university officials decided to focus on more immediate goals such as building the Ackland endowment and donor base. They decided to look at longer-range options, including a public-private partnership and possibly an entirely new museum building in a different location, according to Amanda Hughes, the museum's director of external affairs.

Kass was not available for comment Wednesday. Hughes said the director spoke with the Pattons a few days ago and there were no hard feelings. "Of course we're sad," Hughes said. "This is a wonderful collection. We've had many, many conversations about what an important gift this would be to the Ackland. But it makes perfect sense to go to NCMA. The timeline for the new Ackland building just doesn't match with their timeline."

She said Jim Patton would continue to serve as an emeritus member of the Ackland museum board. The Pattons have served on boards or committees of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution and the Aspen Art Museum.