The Metropolitan Museum of Art has received a promised gift of 188 Dada and Surrealist works from collector and trustee John Pritzker, known as the Bluff Collection. The gift includes pieces by Man Ray, Max Ernst, Marcel and Suzanne Duchamp, Jean Arp, Lee Miller, and others, with 35 works debuting in the upcoming exhibition "Man Ray: When Objects Dream" (14 September 2025 – 1 February 2026). Pritzker is also donating over 100 books and ephemera, and funding a new research initiative, the Bluff Collaborative for Research on Dada and Surrealism, through his family fund.
This gift arrives as the Met prepares to build a new $550 million wing for modern and contemporary art, the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing, designed by Frida Escobedo. It significantly strengthens the museum's holdings in early 20th-century avant-garde movements, positioning the Met as a leading destination for Dada and Surrealist scholarship and display. The donation follows other major acquisitions this year, including over 6,500 photographs from Artur Walther and 500 Inuit prints from René Balcer and Carolyn Hsu-Balcer.