The Malba and the Museum of Decorative Art

The Malba and the Museum of Decorative Art receive new artistic donations

In a year marked by challenges, two museums in Buenos Aires celebrate the addition of masterpieces to their collections.
The Malba expands its collection with pieces by iconic artists from Latin America.
And the National Museum of Decorative Art adds European jewels from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Almost as if it were a Christmas gift for visitors, two museums announced the addition of new works and pieces to their artistic collection. Thanks to the work of the Acquisitions Committee, the Malba (Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires) will add six works by the end of 2024 by the Argentine artists Gyula Kosice, Noemí Gerstein, Alberto Greco and Gracia Cutuli; by the Paraguayan artist Lotte Schulz and the Colombian Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar. In addition, thanks to private donations, pieces by Susana Rodríguez, Mara Facchin and Manuel Espinosa are being added. Meanwhile, the Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo (MNAD) has received a series of works from the collector Mauro Herlitzka that were part of his family collection and that, from April 2025, will be exhibited in a new room that the museum will specially restore. The donation from the Argentine gallery owner, who also has a branch in New York, is made up of a series of oil portraits, oil pastels, and pieces in porcelain and miniatures.
The donated paintings are “Portrait of Maria Herlitzka”, born as Annetta Marietta Lustig (1851-1917), made by the artist Antonio Zuccaro in Trieste, and “Portrait of Mrs. Sophie Charpentier de Herlitzka” (1885-1964), made by Alfredo Galli in New York in 1927.
For its part, the Malba adds these gems: “Constellations” (1972), by Kosice; “Roman Landscape” (1963), Gerstein; “Untitled” (1961), by Greco; “Puna III” (1991), by Cutuli; “Guri” (1986), by Schulz, and “Saludo al astronauta” (1965), by Ramírez Villamizar. The works are incorporated into the Malba Collection. María Amalia García, chief curator of the Malba, stressed that with these acquisitions “this year the Collection incorporates key works of Argentine art and extends the Latin American horizon by incorporating new regional scenes.”
For the love of art

In a year of full oars for the national museums, the Decorativo adds to its collection, as part of this donation from Herlitzka, an oval porcelain box from Sèvres, France; a double Italian box, made in enamel and silver, and another in the shape of a boat, in enamel on metal with silver mounts, which was made in Holland. All the pieces were created in the 18th century. The donation is completed by an ovoid box in Meissen porcelain, made in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century, and a series of European miniatures from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
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