Venezuelan donates 100 Latin American works to New York museum

The Museum of Modern Art has acquired 102 pieces of Latin American art, thanks to a donation from Venezuelan-born collector Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, the New York museum said Monday.

The artworks include paintings, sculptures and other pieces from Brazil, Venezuela and the Rio de la Plata region of Argentina and Uruguay.

They were made between the 1940s and 1990s by 37 artists, 21 of whom are entering the museum for the first time.

"The breadth of this gift is unprecedented," the museum said in a statement, without disclosing the financial value of the donation.

"We are profoundly grateful to Patty Cisneros, whose longstanding and unwavering dedication to art and artists from Latin America continues to transform and expand our understanding and appreciation of that region's significant role in the history of modern and contemporary art," museum director Glenn Lowry said in a statement.

The new works join 40 pieces previously given to the museum by Cisneros and her husband Gustavo and will be used in establishing a research institute at the museum for Latin American art, which is expected to open within a year.

"This gift and the establishment of a dedicated research institute represents a major milestone in our goal to provide a broader context to the history of art from Latin America," said Cisneros, a longtime museum trustee.

Her husband Gustavo is the head of a business conglomerate and Forbes estimates he and his family have a net worth of $2 billion.