From 1926 to 1964, A. Conger Goodyear gifted nearly 300 paintings, sculpture, prints, and drawings. He also bequeathed many important works to the museum.

Seymour H. Knox, Jr., gifted around 800 works from the 1950s to the 1970s. He also helped to facilitate the acquisition of many important works through the Room of Contemporary Art.

After the museum acquired two major paintings by Clyfford Still and gave him his first solo exhibition, the artist gifted 31 additional works in 1964.

Martha Jackson facilitated the acquisition of many important works though her New York gallery. After her death, her son and daughter-in-law gifted an additional 44 works from her remaining personal collection.

From 1998 to 2000, Frederic P. Norton gifted 587 works on paper, including two major portfolios by Odilon Redon and Georges Rouault.

In 2003, Natalie and Irving Forman gifted more than 350 monochrome paintings, sculpture, and works on paper. It remains the single largest group of works to be donated at one time to the museum.

Built through acquisitions—in 2008, 2011, and 2015—of works that center on a predominantly Minimalist aesthetic, The Panza Collection includes 116 works in all media.

In 2009, the museum received 50 works from the collection of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel through the Fifty Works for Fifty States project facilitated by the National Gallery of Art.

Upon her death in 2016, Marisol bequeathed her estate to the museum, including more than 100 sculptures, more than 150 works on paper, thousands of photographs and slides, and a small group of works by other artists that she had collected.