Though Judith Dobryzinski beat them to it, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has made public a few more works acquired this year, including an 1835 folk art painting, “Woman in a Black Ruffled Dress” by Ammi Phillips (once described as a “gem” by New York arts writer Grace Glueck), and a 1984 fabric collage, “A Mayan Garden” by Miriam Schapiro. Created in between those years: William Wetmore Story’s marble “Sappho” (1867), Thomas Hart Benton’s “Tobacco Sorters” (1942-44) and an enormous collection of prints from a private collection, an assemblage of work made between 1925 and 1945 that includes drypoint, etching, engraving, lithography, screenprint, woodcut and wood engraving by such artists as Charles Scheeler, Reginald Marsh, Edward Hopper and Benton. Women artists Ida Albelman, Minna Citron, Mable Dwight, Jolan Gross-Bettelheim, Riva Helfond and Bernarda Bryson Shahn feature prominently. A selection of the 468 prints will be exhibited in a show called “Art Under Pressure: Early Twentieth Century American Prints” to run Dec. 21 through April 22.

Curator Kevin Murphy on the prints:

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“There are a number of prints that deal with the Depression head on and take an approach that looks at people hard at work and trying to improve their circumstances,” said Murphy. “These are printmakers who themselves were often living at the margins and could really understand their fellow blue-collar workers. The collection represents a moment where the American artist and the American people were in sync in a way that we haven’t seen since the Hudson River School painters, and we don’t see again for another generation.”

For some reason, the release does not mention the museum’s acquisition of Theodore Roszak’s “42nd Street (Times Square)” (1936), which Dobryzinski wrote about in September. Nor does the release mention that “Sappho” was in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and has apparently been deacquisitioned. UPDATE: Crystal Bridges “Sappho” is the second version created by Story; the MFA Boston’s sculpture predates Crystal Bridges by several years.

There is more information on the works in the press release on the jump.

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