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The Headlines

STREEP DIGS DEEP. Actor Meryl Streep has made a seven-figure donation to the National Women’s History Museum (NWHM) in Washington D.C., reports Artnet News. As thanks, she gets her own, eponymous Educator Award in her honor, while the donation, the amount of which is unspecified, will fund storytelling projects and digital programming. Streep’s gift to the nomadic, digital-first museum “reflects her enduring belief in the power of amplifying women’s voices,” stated the museum in its announcement. The NWHM helped establish the forthcoming Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, through a bipartisan congressional committee, though its physical location on the National Mall is still unknown, and lawmakers have asked for an “anti-transgender provision” to be added to the project. “History is shaped not only by those who make it, but by those who ensure it is remembered,” Streep stated in the announcement of the news.

NUMBER ONE FAN. The Musée d’Orsay has received a remarkable collection of 17 Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings, all done on fans, reports Le Figaro. Artists such as Pissarro, Gauguin, Degas, and Toulouse-Lautrec are among the big names who experimented with painting on fans. On March 24, in celebration of its 40th anniversary, the museum will display the recently gifted, fragile works for three months. The Hong-Kong-based collector who donated the collection, identified simply as Ms. Kan, stated she was struck by the “remarkable beauty” of paintings made on fans throughout art history and around the world, leading to a lifelong passion that is not limited to French Impressionists. “I like the fact that the Impressionists were influenced by Asia,” she added.

The Digest

Helen Legg will become the next director of London’s Royal Academy of Arts. Currently director of Tate Liverpool, Legg will start her new job in June, when she’ll become responsible for exhibitions, collection and public programming at the institution. [The Art Newspaper]