NewsCoronavirus resources
Building on Covid-19 effort, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation details $1.5m in grants for small museums, artists and equity initiatives
Recipients range from Grey Art Gallery at NYU to a truck that transports art books to underserved communities
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Charity gives £2.5m Covid-19 rescue grants to 66 UK arts organisations including Tate and British Museum
Clore Duffield Foundation funds are designed to relaunch learning and community programming
NewsPhilanthropy
Amid pandemic, foundations marshal $156m to support minority arts organisations in the US
Funds are intended to counter the devastation that the coronavirus has wrought in the national arts landscape
Newsdiversity
Rockefeller Brothers Fund plans $1.5m in grants to help New York museums promote diverse artists
Financial aid will help eight institutions “disrupt dominant narratives” and “build back a more equitable culture” after Covid lockdown
NewsPrivate Museums
Vacuum cleaner billionaire James Dyson plans to build art gallery in his garden
Planning permission has been submitted for a building in the grounds of Dodington Park
NewsPhilanthropy
Metropolitan Museum of Art commits to paying all interns after $5m gift
Adrienne Arsht's donation will fund the museum’s internship programme and the MetLiveArts performance series
NewsBanksy
Banksy triptych—estimated at £1.2m—to be sold at Sotheby's in aid of Palestinian hospital
Artists has donated the works, which were previously on display in his Walled Off hotel in Bethlehem
NewsPhilanthropy
Citing devastating coronavirus impact, five US foundations plan to increase payouts to strapped nonprofits by $1.7bn
In a novel strategy, at least three of the foundations will borrow money to finance giving
Newscoronavirus
Getty sets up $10m fund for small and mid-size Los Angeles-area arts organisations reeling from virus
The trust anticipates that grants will range from $25,000 to $200,000
Newscoronavirus
Donors set up $75m fund to help cultural groups and other non-profits in New York City
Fund will disburse grants and loans to small and midsize organisations impacted by coronavirus
NewsMadrid
Collector Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza invests in Madrid after leaving Vienna
Austrian patron donates work to Reina Sofia and commissions new piece by Ragnar Kjartansson to be shown at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
NewsThe Year in Review 2019
From the MoMA expansion to ‘artwashing’ ill-gotten wealth: the major museum moments of 2019
We look back at the biggest stories of the year
NewsArt Basel in Miami Beach 2019
What will cultural philanthropy look like in the 21st century? A new forum aims to find out
A survey of 500 art world professionals conducted by the Arts Funders Forum could help museums stay relevant to new patrons
NewsMuseums
Michael Rakowitz wants to pause his video work at MoMA PS1 as a protest against museum's ties to 'toxic philanthropy'
"It's censorship", the artist says of curators' denials to suspend work that is part of show on the artistic legacy of the Gulf War
NewsAcquisitions
Jayne Wrightsman leaves over 375 works of art and $80m to the Met
From European paintings to the decorative arts, the patron and her oil tycoon husband, who both served as trustees for decades, gave the New York museum more than 1,275 works in all
NewsPhilanthropy
Pew Center for Arts and Heritage announces over $8.4m in grants
Fellowships and project stipends go to 12 artists and 27 cultural projects in the Philadelphia area
NewsMuseum of Modern Art New York
Seven arrested at protest during MoMA’s public opening
Demonstrators blocked the museum’s entrance and sat in the street as they demanded the removal of Steven Tananbaum — a financier whose company owns $2.5bn in Puerto Rican debt — from its board of trustees
NewsNigeria
Yoruba prince donates more than 1,000 works of art to establish university museum in Nigeria
Yemisi Shyllon hopes other Nigerian collectors will follow his example and help found teaching museums that promote art education
NewsAcquisitions
New York's Morgan Library receives ‘transformational’ trove of manuscripts and bindings
Bequest comes from New York collector Jayne Wrightsman, who amassed an 18th-century library to complement her celebrated French furnishings
NewsCultural policy
World Cities Culture Forum and Bloomberg Philanthropies announce the second Leadership Exchange Programme
International leaders are invited to apply to the initiative which aims to advance cultural projects and explore the ways art can improve the quality of life for urban residents
CommentMuseums & Heritage
A victory for righteousness or just a performance of it?
We need to acknowledge the complexity of our time and not hide in simple political polarities, says the director of the Art Gallery of Ontario
NewsCathedral of Notre Dame
It's official: French tycoons finalise €300m donations for fire-ravaged Notre Dame
Foundation secures funds from Bernard Arnault and François Pinault towards the reconstruction of the cathedral
NewsMusée du Louvre
Louvre to train refugees as tour guides with funds from Saudi foundation
Supported by undisclosed donation from Alwaleed Philanthropies, French museum’s newly renovated Islamic galleries reopened this week
NewsLaw
Sacklers in talks over multibillion-dollar settlement of opioid crisis lawsuits
Proposed settlement calls for family's company Purdue Pharma to file for bankruptcy and become a public trust distributing profits
CommentMuseums & Heritage
Collectors are now collecting museums, not the other way around
Seats on boards offered by major museums are increasingly being used to serve the narrow agendas of the ultra-rich
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Philanthropy, but at what price? US museums wake up to public's ethical concerns
Daniel Weiss, Adam Weinberg and other museum leaders speak out following the fallout from the resignation of the Whitney’s vice chairman and the ongoing Sackler affair
NewsSackler family
Musée du Louvre removes all mention of Sackler name from its galleries following protests
Activist group Pain says Paris museum has taped over or taken down plaques dedicated to the eponymous family whose pharmaceutical company is accused of fuelling the US opioid crisis
NewsObituaries
Frieder Burda—leading German collector of Modern masters including Picasso and Pollock—dies aged 83
Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden is home to the philanthropist's collection of around 1,000 works
NewsArt market
UniCredit to sell off one of world's largest corporate art collections
The Italian bank, which just announced €1.4bn profit in first quarter of 2019, will offload some of the 60,000 works of art in order to fund social initiatives
NewsObituaries
Philanthropist Henry Wollman Bloch has died aged 96
Bloch was an avid collector who made important contributions to the Nelson-Atkins Museum
NewsCathedral of Notre Dame
Director of Pinault Collection proposes controversial 90% tax breaks for Notre Dame donors
But Pinault family says it is not seeking tax relief for its €100m donation towards the reconstruction effort
NewsPrivate Museums
Software billionaire plans to turn decaying Potsdam restaurant into museum for East German art
Hasso Plattner also plans to put his Impressionist works on permanent display in his Barberini Museum
NewsConservation & Preservation
Fragile inheritance: US museums bridge skills gap in conservation of Chinese paintings
Philanthropic funding assures new training for the next generation of masters to emerge
NewsSackler Trust
Sackler Trust charity in UK suspends all new gifts
The move is a “face-saving” measure says US photographer and activist Nan Goldin
NewsAppointments & departures
Terra Foundation’s transformational leader Elizabeth Glassman to step down
During her two-decade tenure, the Terra closed its Chicago museum and turned its attention to grant-making and collaborations
NewsConservation & Preservation
American donations shore up conservation efforts in France
From Paris to Chartres, US philanthropy makes its mark
InterviewCollecting
Collector's Eye: an interview with Wallis Annenberg
The Los Angeles-based philanthropist tells us what she's bought and why
NewsBuilding projects
Couple donates $40m for MoMA's renovation and expansion
Acknowledging gift, museum names a film center after Debra and Leon Black
NewsDonations
Major coup for Paris’s Institut du Monde Arabe as it receives one of its biggest ever donations of works
Gallerist Claude Lemand and his wife France also set up a fund to support the museum
NewsPhilanthropy
Sackler family—major cultural patrons—amassed $31.2m in offshore HSBC bank accounts, investigation finds
Mortimer Sackler opened a handful of accounts in Switzerland one month before federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma in 2005
News
Dallas Museum of Art says thank you to a life-long patron
Institution recognises the “transformational” final gift of its late trustee Margaret McDermott with a special exhibition and new wall labels for more than 400 works she helped acquire
NewsPrivate Museums
Moscow's Garage Museum still going strong at ten, despite co-founders’ split
Roman Abramovich and Dasha Zhukova will continue to fund their contemporary art museum
NewsFunding
Will museums stop accepting Sackler money in wake of Massachusetts lawsuit?
Eight members of the family are being sued for helping to fuel the opioid epidemic through their pharmaceutical company
NewsPhilanthropy
Art for Justice Fund gives out $10m in new grants—including to art projects
The second round of funding will support works themed around incarceration by Xaviera Simmons, Hank Willis Thomas and Titus Kaphar, and a planned installation on the High Line
NewsPhilanthropy
Russian billionaire’s Peri Foundation will keep paying for culture after arrest
It is business as usual, says the organisation’s director, as its founder, Ziyavudin Magomedov, remains in custody awaiting trial on racketeering charges
NewsProtest
Nan Goldin leads anti-opioid protest at the Met's Sackler Wing
In their first direct action, the artist and her activist group PAIN tossed prescription pill bottles labelled OxyContin into the moat surrounding the Temple of Dendur and staged a die-in
NewsPhilanthropy
Meet the collector who signed away her masterpiece to reform the criminal justice system
Agnes Gund talks to us about how she uses her philanthropy to push for change
NewsArtists
Artists back Nan Goldin’s call to hold Sackler family to account over US opioid crisis
"Maybe the Sacklers don’t care, but we should give them the chance to discuss solutions, and if they rebuff, then f*** them"—Jeremy Deller
NewsProtest
Online petition demands Sacklers and Purdue Pharma pay for rehab centres and Narcan dispensers
The activist group founded by the artist Nan Goldin, who revealed her struggles with opioid addiction, says it intends to pressure museums to refuse the philanthropic family’s money
NewsArt Basel in Miami Beach
Miami fairs raise funds for hurricane-hit artists
Art Center/South Florida has matched Art Basel donation
NewsArt Basel in Miami Beach
Design Miami award goes to artist-backed school in Africa
Art classes will be key to the school in Zambia, supported by Rashid Johnson and New York-based charitable foundation
NewsPrizes
Knight Foundation awards $2.5m in grants to realise 43 Miami art projects
Funding will help bring the Creative Time Summit to South Florida, back a show on the Cuban artist José Antonio Aponte, and finance a “wine club for art” subscription collecting service
CommentFunding
Culture is compromised by donations from the Sackler family: we must not accept any more of their money
Anna Somers Cocks on the revelations published in the New Yorker magazine
NewsFunding
Business as usual for museums funded by Sackler opioid money?
Beneficiaries of the family’s largesse deflect or ignore questions about the donors’ role in the drugs epidemic sweeping the US
NewsPhilanthropy
Agnes Gund’s Art for Justice Fund awards $22m in grants to activist groups and social programmes
As well as backing arts-focused initiatives, the money will help support organisations working to make changes in government policy
News
Valeria Napoleone's all-female art collection hits the road
The London-based philanthropist partners with Museums Sheffield to show works by women artists
News
Homegrown philanthropy fuels the new Speed Art Museum
Decade of renovation ends with marathon opening for expanded gallery
News
New programme aims to train future leaders of artist foundations
Seminar to be held in New York at the offices of influential philanthropic groups, including the Roy Lichtenstein and Joan Mitchell foundations
NewsPhilanthropy
Taxing times: private museums under scrutiny by US government
Who benefits most from tax breaks on private art museums: patrons or the public?
CommentTax
How do you tell the difference between philanthropy and a tax write-off?
News
Abraaj sponsors next generation of artist entrepreneurs
NewsArtists
Olafur Eliasson launches successful appeal to kickstart Little Sun's next big project
Solar-powered mobile phone charger is designed to fill gap in African market
NewsPhilanthropy
Ford Foundation joins global fight against inequality
Grants of $500m will focus on fairness, president says
NewsArt
Artists do their bit to help US museums’ bottom line
Los Angeles institution gained $22.5m last month as endowments grow thanks to sale of artists’ gifts
ArchiveLeonard Lauder
Leonard Lauder: The man who put Cubism in the Met
The billionaire philanthropist reveals how he amassed a collection of works by Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger with a museum in mind
ArchiveLos Angeles
‘Patience is not one of my virtues’: Eli Broad on his new museum's delayed opening
While construction continues, Broad has been busy buying art
ArchiveEli Broad
LA Mayor spares the city’s cultural department despite financial pressure
The philanthropist Eli Broad will help the organisation focus on attracting tourists
ArchiveEli Broad
The billionaire Eli Broad’s collection of post-war art goes on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Is this where it will come finally to rest?
Thinking Broadly at LACMA
ArchiveEli Broad
Eli Broad leads subway route campaign in Los Angeles
Philanthropist joins group petitioning to expand LA Metro
ArchiveInterviews
Interview with Hilary Weston: Grimm in Florida
The importance of meditation, mirages and tuning out.
ArchiveDecember 2011
UK Treasury rules to stop museums spending donors' cash
National institutions reluctantly set up trusts to gain access to their own reserves
ArchiveJanuary 2011
US art sponsorship suffering after economic crisis, survey shows
Corporate giving down 14% over three years according to Business Committee for the Arts
ArchiveCarlos Slim
Carlos Slim Helu is world’s richest man
The Mexican billionaire is also a significant art collector
ArchiveFebruary 2010
French institutions have lost their integrity by relying on private sponsors, leading fundraiser says
Longtime arts and heritage patron Olivier de Rohan denounces the increasing influence of external bodies on museums' creative decisions
ArchiveCollectors
Collector Richard Driehaus's private museum gets a classical makeover
Who said it was all about modernism?
ArchiveMay 2009
Chicago's industrialist benefactors built the city’s art collections—but can today’s patrons maintain them?
So far the next generation have yet to replicate their parents’ efforts on the same scale
ArchiveCollectors
Norwegian dealer's estate to benefit charity
Médecins Sans Frontières will get millions from the sale
ArchiveApril 2008
Anthony d’Offay deal with Tate and Scotland sets tax precedent for UK philanthropy
For his partial donation of £125m worth of art, the dealer received £26.5m—the price he originally paid for the collection—tax free
ArchiveNews
Warhol Foundation report looks back on 20 years of philanthropy
Shedding light on the donations, grants, and gifts given by the foundation since Warhol's death
ArchiveMay 2007
Seattle Art Museum gets $1bn worth of art from 'incredibly devoted group of collectors'
The gift from 53 local patrons is one of the largest in the history of institutional donations
ArchiveExhibitions
Museums in the US and UK pay tribute to Paul Mellon, collector and benefactor, in the centenary of his birth
Celebrating the greatest Anglophile of them all
ArchiveLaw
New legislation could lead to the end of partial gifts to museums
Changes to US tax law could discourage collectors from giving
ArchiveMay 2006
As US museums face mounting legal issues, an annual conference explores what to do with whistleblowers and dodgy donors
Recent corporate scandals have raised concerns that American charities should be examining their ethics policies
ArchiveCollectors
The rich list: More than 100 people join global list of billionaires
Many are major art collectors and philanthropists
ArchiveDenver Art Museum
Denver Art Museum gets $60m contemporary art gift
The collectors Kent and Vicki Logan donate 300 works of art and an endowment
ArchiveUniversity of California
UCLA students get Richard Meier building thanks to $23m from Eli Broad
Philanthropist pays for nearly half the cost of new building
ArchiveEli Broad
Eli Broad breaks new ground at LACMA
Construction starts next month on the collector’s $50 million Modern art gallery at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
ArchiveDecember 2005
Contemporary philanthropy: Conversations with Eli Broad, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Howard Rachofsky and David Rockefeller
Leading philanthropist-collectors gathered in Miami Beach to discuss their personal philosophies
ArchiveFrançois Pinault
Loss of Pinault collection is “catastrophe” for Paris
A top museum director and a dealer react to the billionaire’s decision to show his contemporary art collection in Venice
ArchiveInterviews
Interview with His Highness the Aga Khan on Al-Azhar Park and the importance of architecture
In a rare interview, the Aga Khan describes his global approach to helping Islamic communities help themselves, while also restoring their past heritage
ArchiveEli Broad
Eli Broad and LACMA set up foundation to run museum’s new wing
Following the philanthropist's $60 million gift to the museum
ArchiveEli Broad
Eli Broad chooses Renzo Piano for Los Angeles County Museum of Art project
The Italian architect will design the institution’s new $50 million wing
ArchiveFrançois Pinault
Will François Pinault’s museum on the Seine be built?
Following rumours that Pinault is struggling financially
ArchiveEli Broad
Eli Broad finances new building scheme for Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Total rebuild by Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas, is scrapped, however
ArchiveCollectors
Collector profile: Gustav Rau, Schweitzer redivivus
A doctor in a remote village in the Congo, part of Dr Rau's thousand-strong collection is on display now in Paris.
ArchiveCollectors
Collector-benefactor profile: Who owns Sri Lankan, Canadian, cricketing art—and now portraiture?
Christopher Ondaatje has only recently come to public notice with his donation of £2,750,000 to London’s National Portrait Gallery.
ArchiveRonald Lauder
How should billionaire Ronald Lauder be understood; philanthropist, restitution advocate, leader or naive temporiser?
The heir to the cosmetics fortune is creating his own museum and would like to see art returned to Holocaust victims, but how effective is he actually?
CommentPhilanthropy
Please send help: a letter to the Getty Trust
Our Los Angeles correspondent Jori Finkel asks the world's richest cultural organisation to support the city's struggling arts community during the coronavirus pandemic
Jori Finkel