3 paintings worth $12.1 million will be given to UNC-Chapel Hill’s Ackland Art Museum

A UNC-Chapel Hill donor and art collector is giving three American modernist paintings worth $12.1 million to the university’s Ackland Art Museum.

Jane Roughton Kearns, a North Carolina native, is bequeathing two Joan Mitchell paintings and one Milton Avery painting to the museum. Mitchell and Avery were artists from the post-World War II American modernism movement.

“Any museum that collects in this time period would be delighted to have these works. They are of that high quality and that distinguished,” said Katie Ziglar, the director of the Ackland, in an interview with The News & Observer.

Ziglar said the three paintings are currently at Kearns’ apartment. Kearns lives in Connecticut and is a former vice-chair of the Carolina Performing Arts International Advisory Board. Her family is a longtime supporter of UNC.

The Mitchell and Avery paintings are the latest addition to the museum’s collection of artwork. The Ackland also owns seven Rembrandt drawings — part of a $17 million art donation the museum received in 2017 — and work by American pop artist Andy Warhol, Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens and Japanese print artist Tsukioka Kohgyo.

The museum already owns 10 works by Avery, but none by Mitchell.

“I first saw (Mitchell and Avery’s paintings) 10 years ago when I first arrived in Chapel Hill and was going out and looking at collections,” said Peter Nisbet, the deputy director for curatorial affairs at the Ackland, in an interview with The News & Observer. “Ever since then, I had the secret hope they would find their way to the Ackland. I could not be more delighted that secret hope has come true.”

About the paintings

Mitchell, one of the most recognized female abstract expressionists, was known for her large oil paintings, according to the Joan Mitchell Foundation. She spent most of her career in France and died in 1992.

Avery, who died in 1965, is less well-known than Mitchell, but the modernist was “highly regarded by his contemporaries in the older generation as an artist who really deployed or used the achievements of artists like Henri Matisse,” Nisbet said.

“The approach between the two artists could not be more different,” Ziglar said. “Mitchell is all about paint and line and color and rhythm. ... Avery (doesn’t paint) a strictly realistic rendering, but he’s referring to something.”

Mitchell’s oil paintings are untitled. One is from 1962, while the other was completed in 1964. Avery’s work is titled, “Spring in New Hampshire.”

Nisbet said the paintings show two different sides of the American modernism movement.

“These abstract impressionist paintings by Joan Mitchell don’t show any objects, but are full of energy and dynamism and the effect of paint on canvas by itself,” Nisbet said.

“The Milton Avery is a realist painting of a scene on the seashore, which is very lyrical, calm and ordered.”

Kearns family is longtime UNC supporter

Kearns is an avid art collector. She studied art at Salem College in Winston-Salem and London’s Inchbald School of Design before working for Condé Nast in New York, according to UNC. She later founded an interior design firm in Greensboro.

Kearns told UNC she especially likes contemporary art and work by female artists.

“I was fortunate enough to be able to start collecting art. It’s just something that is wonderful to live with and enjoy, and it enhances your life,” Kearns said in a news release from UNC. “It’s particularly stimulating and fun to live with contemporary art because it’s non-representational and can speak to so many things.”

The paintings aren’t the Kearns family’s first donation to UNC. Jane Kearns and her husband, 1958 alumnus Thomas Kearns Jr., donated $3 million last year to fund a scholarship for a point guard on the men’s basketball team, the university said. This position-specific endowment is one of the first of its kind in men’s college basketball.

Thomas Kearns Jr. was the starting point guard on the 1957 team, the first Tar Heels team to win an NCAA championship. The family later sent their daughter and two sons to UNC.

“We thank Jane (Kearns) so much and hope that she will be a role model for others,” said Ziglar, the Ackland’s director.

The Ackland Art Museum is currently closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, but its art collection is available to view on its website.

This story was originally published July 29, 2020 at 11:52 AM.