Award-winning philanthropy in the Arts

INCREASING THE FLOW OF CAPITAL FOR GOOD - INVESTING AND GIVING

Ron Mueck, Spooning Couple© Ron Mueck
Magazine article

Here we feature two stellar case studies of philanthropy in the arts, both winners of Prince of Wales Medals for Philanthropy in 2010. The medal created by Arts&Business  for HRH The Prince of Wales to award, celebrates individuals who support the arts and recognises the contribution of the most inspiring cultural philanthropists. Both the following medal-winning case studies demonstrate the immense value and impact of thoughtful philanthropy.

Case study 1: Anthony and Anne d’Offay

Anthony d’Offay did not grow up with paint brushes and easels scattered round the house. As a boy in Leicester, the son of a surgeon and an antiques dealer, he simply picked up the habit of attending art exhibitions at his local museum, and quickly learned to love them. “I was, like lots of young people, lonely, dazed and confused,” he says, “and I found some sort of comfort in culture. I felt by visiting the museum I could reach some sort of resolution to the dilemmas one faces as a teenager.”

Besides helping him “grow up”, as he puts it, those visits also stirred a passion for art that has become the focus of his life. Influenced and inspired by his wife Anne, herself a curator, he went on to become one of the world’s most successful art dealers and collectors. Together, the couple championed the work of Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, Gilbert & George and many others. Indeed, with hindsight, the d’Offay Gallery in Dering Street, London, is now widely regarded as a vital catalyst for the renaissance in contemporary British art.

Ironically, the great appetite for contemporary artists that the d’Offays helped inspire also made their work too expensive for most regional galleries to buy. So, in February 2008, Anthony and Anne made the extraordinary announcement that they had decided to give almost their entire collection away – at a personal cost of roughly £100m – so that young people around the country would be able to view it forever, and for free.

In total, the d’Offays donated 725 individual pieces from 32 modern artists, including Warhol, Beuys, Koons, Arbus, Mapplethorpe, Viola and Hirst. Now owned jointly by the Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the works have formed a new national collection called Artist Rooms. This unique project stipulates that the pieces must regularly tour the country’s smaller galleries, where they will be grouped by individual artist, with no admission charge, and a focus on attracting new audiences. This national tour was funded by the Art Fund, the national fundraising charity for works of art.

Unsurprisingly, the project has also been a great success. In 2009, its first year, the various exhibitions were seen by a total of eight million people across Britain, more than 700,000 of whom were outside London or Edinburgh. At the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness on Orkney mainland, for instance, around 14,000 people visited the Bill Viola show – an event that would once have simply been impossible.

And the d’Offays’ generosity has not stopped at their donation. Anthony continues to be active in curating the shows, promoting the project, and persuading other collectors and artists to add their own gifts to the group.

He’s such an enthusiast for art and this collection that he’s just very persuasive,” says Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate. “He’s not a flowery person, but what comes across is his integrity and his absolute passion – a belief that Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol, for instance, really are very, very important artists who have changed the way we see the world.”

To enjoy something for nothing, to thrive with what one learned, and then to give that opportunity back to others: there is no purer philanthropic story. One can only speculate about how many 21st-century artists, curators, art-lovers and collectors will turn out to have been inspired by the d’Offays’ collection. Financially, it is certainly among the largest artistic gifts ever made to this country. Yet, to Anthony and Anne, it was just a favour being returned.

Case study 2: The late Lord Wolfson and family

Leonard Gordon Wolfson, Lord Wolfson by Andrew Festing 2000 © National Portrait GalleryAll philanthropists want to see the money they give away spent wisely, but few can match the efforts of the Wolfson Foundation to make certain of it.

This is not because the late Lord Wolfson and his family have been reluctant donors – since 1955, they have given away more than £1bn, at today’s prices, to a variety of causes in science, medicine, education and the arts. Rather, it is because the Wolfson Foundation is guided by a philosophy of wrapping its gifts in something even more valuable.

When we put money in, it’s not just a cheque,” explains Paul Ramsbottom, the foundation’s chief executive. “We hope it’s also a stamp of excellence. We go through an extraordinarily rigorous assessment process, with a panel of independent experts, and only then do the trustees make a decision. The intention is that other funders will then feel that, if Wolfson have put money into something, they can be sure that it’s top quality.”

Besides being a wise and productive service, this philosophy is also grounded in the history of the Wolfson family, whose remarkable instinct for business made Great Universal Stores, at one time, the largest retail conglomerate in Europe. When the late Lord Wolfson died, in May this year, there was complete agreement among the obituarists about his shrewd eye for value and unshakable commitment to philanthropy.

And today both qualities live on in his daughters Janet Wolfson de Botton, who is the foundation’s new chairman, and Laura Wolfson Townsley, who now chairs the Wolfson Family Charitable Trust.

Lord Wolfson devoted huge amounts of his time and energy to the Foundation,” Ramsbottom remembers. “He was always questioning, always interrogating applicants for projects, really looking at every one of these grants as an investment that would reap a return, not to him personally, but to society as a whole.”

Historic Royal Palaces are just one of the many charities who have reason to be grateful for their grilling. “I have known Lord Wolfson since 2005 when he supported our project to restore and represent Kew Palace,” says Michael Day, the charity’s chief executive. “It was typical of the Wolfson family to support organisations and projects, as we were at the time, who were new to fundraising and who might have appeared, to the untrained eye, as ‘less attractive’ funding opportunities than others.”

Since that first encounter with the foundation, however – and no doubt partly because of it – Historic Royal Palaces have gathered many other donors. They have also received more Wolfson support for preservation work on the famous White Tower at the Tower of London. “Lord Wolfson was a great friend to us,” says Day, “championing projects as well as supporting them. His death was a great and sad loss to the arts and culture communities.”

This year, the foundation made its third, and largest ever investment with Historic Royal Palaces, supporting their ambitious plans for Kensington Palace. You do not need to ask if the money was well spent.

Picture: Leonard Gordon Wolfson, Lord Wolfson by Andrew Festing, 2000 © National Portrait Gallery

Case studies reproduced by kind permission of Arts&Business.