James Goldstein House
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Modernist home featured in the Coen brothers’ 1998 film The Big Lebowski has been promised to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma). The house near Beverly Hills, designed by John Lautner in the early 1960s, is the first work of architecture to enter the museum’s collection. The eccentric real estate investor James Goldstein has been refining the property since he purchased it in 1979, installing frameless glass walls, custom concrete furniture and a James Turrell Skyspace. Upon his death, Goldstein will donate the estate and its contents, including a fashion collection, works of art and a 1961 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. The gift comes with a $17m endowment for maintenance and events programming. The museum’s director, Michael Govan, who has long sought to acquire and preserve the city’s residential landmarks, called the house “an exceptional example of domestic architecture and a tremendous legacy in our own backyard”.
Tim Sayer Bequest
Hepworth Wakefield
The Hepworth Wakefield in Yorkshire, northern England, has received one of the largest bequests to a British museum in recent years. Tim Sayer, a retired BBC Radio 4 news writer, was inspired to donate his library and collection of more than 400 works after visiting the gallery last year. His holdings include ceramics, sculptures, paintings and works on paper by modern and contemporary artists such as Alexander Calder, David Hockney, Gerhard Richter and Bridget Riley. Around 100 highlights from the bequest are due to go on show from 30 April as part of the gallery’s fifth anniversary celebrations.
Jackson Pollock sculpture
Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art has acquired one of six surviving sculptures by the Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock. Untitled (1956) is part of a series of sculptures in sand, plaster, wire and gauze that Pollock created when he was recovering from depression at the home of his friend, the sculptor Tony Smith. The sculptures are believed to be his final works, made just before he died in a car accident, aged 44. The museum bought the work from the Tony Smith estate for an undisclosed sum.