For the last three decades, Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz have assembled one of the finest private holdings of American “outsider art,” or work by self-taught artists. In 2011, they made a promised gift to the museum of nearly two hundred works from their impressive collection, which features celebrated artists Martín Ramírez, James Castle, and Bill Traylor as well as lesser-known figures such as Jon Serl and Simon Sparrow. This transformative gift was a splendid contribution to the institution’s distinguished holdings of modern and contemporary art.
In addition to outsider art, Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz have presented fine examples of kanthas and phulkaris, lively embroidered textiles from Bengal and the Punjab region of India and Pakistan, as gifts and promised gifts to the museum. They also support special exhibitions at the museum on an ongoing basis through the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Exhibition Fund.