Thu., January 5, 2012 9:15am (EST)

State Art Museum Gets Major Works
By Associated Press
Updated: 1 year ago

ATLANTA  —  
The donations include pieces by Hale Woodruff, Beauford Delaney, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Wadsworth Jarrell and Radcliffe Bailey. (Photo Courtesy of D. Flam via Flickr.)
The donations include pieces by Hale Woodruff, Beauford Delaney, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Wadsworth Jarrell and Radcliffe Bailey. (Photo Courtesy of D. Flam via Flickr.)
A couple who amassed one of the nation's major private collections of African-American art is donating 100 works to the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported the plans and said Larry and Brenda Thompson also will fund a new curatorial position at the museum.

Museum board Chairman Carl Mullis called the couple's contributions "transformative" for the official state art museum of Georgia and an amazing gift to the people of the state.

The donations include pieces by Hale Woodruff, Beauford Delaney, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Wadsworth Jarrell and Radcliffe Bailey.

Larry Thompson, a former U.S. deputy attorney general based in Atlanta and retired general counsel and secretary for PepsiCo, lived in Georgia for 30 years. His wife is a retired clinical school psychologist.