Tag: Arts Philanthropy

Agnes Gund, Relentless Arts Patron and Supporter of Justice-Impacted Artists, Dies at 87

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Agnes Gund. (c) 2013 Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

There are many signs that the art world has reached the end of an era, and the passing of arts patron and philanthropist Agnes Gund on Friday, September 19 is one of the most definitive. Her death marks the departure of an entire generation of committed collectors, leaving the industry to grapple with who will step into their place and sustain a system that has grown vast and unwieldy.

Gund died at age 87, as reported by the New York Times. The cause has not been disclosed, though her daughter Catherine Gund confirmed her passing.

A relentless supporter of art and culture, Gund was among the most influential U.S. patrons of the past half-century (even taking a spot on our 2023 Business of Art Power List). As president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art, where she served as president for more than 11 years, she played a transformative role in expanding the museum’s reach and collection, directly helping raise the funds that made its most recent expansion possible.

She sat on numerous boards, supported generations of artists and championed art as a tool for education, equity and systemic change. She reportedly gave away two-thirds of her assets each year to sustain New York’s cultural life and was a fixture at galas, including those of El Museo del Barrio, YoungArts, The Kitchen and MoMA PS1, where she was seen this summer.

Her collection included some of the greatest names of the past century—artists she not only supported but knew personally. Masterpieces by Mark Rothko, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Jasper Johns, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Yayoi Kusama and Louise Bourgeois (and the list just goes on) formed part of an encyclopedic collection that spanned the breadth of contemporary art across media and styles.

Gund had already donated hundreds of works to MoMA, which honored her with the exhibition “Studio Visit: Selected Gifts from Agnes Gund,” showcasing around 50 of the more than 800 works she gave. In total, over 900 artworks from her collection have been gifted or promised to public institutions nationwide. As for what’s left, it remains to be seen which auction house will secure this trophy estate.

She was also a longtime advocate for arts education and social justice. In 1977 she founded “Studio in a School,” an innovative program that placed professional artists in New York public schools, inspiring tens of thousands of children. She extended her civic influence by serving on the New York State Council on the Arts and as chair of the Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission of New York City.

In 2017 she sold her beloved Roy Lichtenstein Masterpiece to hedge fund investor Steven Cohen for $165 million to launch Art for Justice, a catalytic six-year fund targeting the racial inequities of mass incarceration. The fund sunsetted in 2023 after distributing more than $127 million in grants. “Agnes is not done,” Helena Huang, Art for Justice’s project director, told Observer at the time, noting Gund’s growing focus on reproductive rights and her enduring concern for the state of the world.

In November 2023 she sold another Lichtenstein, directing more than $2 million to the Groundswell Fund, which advocates for reproductive rights, and to Michigan’s Reproductive Freedom for All ballot measure. “She would say that there’s less art to sell,” Huang commented, when asked whether Gund would continue parting with works for charity. “But she’ll continue to leverage everything that she has.”

Who was Agnes Gund?

Agnes Gund was born on August 13, 1938 in Cleveland. Her father, George Gund II, built a fortune in real estate, brewing and investing and served as president of the Cleveland Trust Company, Ohio’s largest bank. After his death in 1966, she inherited a substantial trust and soon purchased a Henry Moore sculpture, beginning what would grow into a collection of some 2,000 works.

Her passion for art began in childhood with visits to the Cleveland Museum of Art and deepened at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Conn., where she enrolled after her mother’s death in 1954. “I had a magical art history teacher who didn’t just give you the artist’s name and the date of the picture; she showed you how to look at artwork,” she told Lifestyles magazine in 2010.

Gund graduated from Connecticut College for Women (now Connecticut College) in 1960 with a degree in history. Three years later she married Albrecht “Brec” Saalfield, a private-school teacher and heir to the Saalfield Publishing Company. The marriage ended in divorce, as did a second marriage to Daniel Shapiro, a lawyer and teacher. She had four children with Saalfield—Catherine, David, Anna and Jessica—and is also survived by her brothers Gordon and Geoffrey Gund, her sister, the theater producer Louise Gund, and 12 grandchildren.

The passing of Agnes Gund leaves a profound void in New York’s art world and beyond, sharpening the question of who will carry forward the work of her generation and ensure the future of cultural patronage.

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Elisa Carollo

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September 19, 2025
The New Futures Production Fund Links the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation and NYC’s New Museum

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Elisa Carollo

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September 15, 2025
Paul Allen’s Foundation Puts $10M Toward Arts and Culture in Washington

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Seattle Opera’s youth opera project performs Rootabaga Country. Photo: Sunny Martini

The philanthropic legacy of Paul Allen lives on through the foundation established by the Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder in 1988, and now, more than 800 arts and culture nonprofits across Washington, Allen’s home state, are set to receive a total of $10 million in grants from his eponymous foundation.

“From the Olympics to the Palouse, every corner of our state is brimming with diverse and rich cultural activity, and we are incredibly heartened by the extensive reach and continued impact of this program,” said Lara Littlefield, the Paul G. Allen Foundation’s executive director of partnerships and programs, in a statement. Its most recent round of grants ranges from $2,500 to $25,000 and follows $10 million given last year to Washington arts and culture organizations during the pilot edition of the Community Accelerator Grant program, which is funded by the foundation and administered by the Seattle nonprofit ArtsFund.

The grant program was created to aid sectors that saw audiences, workforces and revenues negatively impacted by the pandemic and economic inflation. The most recent round of grantees cited programmatic funding as a top need, followed by funds for salaries and labor, rent, mortgage and facility upgrades, and communications and marketing.

Mariachi Noroeste performs at Icicle Creek Center for the Arts. Photo: Robert Inn/Courtesy Icicle Creek Center for the Arts

This year’s recipients of Community Accelerator Grant funds include the Seattle Opera, Icicle Creek Center for the Arts, Spokane International Film Festival, Ballyhoo Theatre and Indigenous Performance Productions. The various organizations are spread across thirty-seven counties in Washington and represent disciplines like music, cultural heritage, theater and visual arts. Around 70 percent of grantees reported annual budgets of less than $500,000, according to the Paul G. Allen Foundation.

Paul Allen’s wide-ranging philanthropy

Co-founded by Allen and his sister Jodi, the Paul G. Allen Foundation has long invested in arts and culture across the Pacific Northwest with an emphasis on underserved populations and youth initiatives. Allen, who died in 2018, was an avid patron and collector of art—his holdings spanning 500 years sold for more than $1.6 million in 2022 at a Christie’s auction that stands as the largest private collection sale in history. The late billionaire also founded cultural initiatives like the Seattle Art Fair and Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, which recently received thousands of cultural artifacts—including musical instruments, movie props and memorabilia owned by David Bowie and Prince—from Allen’s estate.

Allen, who had an estimated net worth of $20.3 billion at the time of his death, donated more than $2.6 billion to initiatives in the arts, wildlife conservation and medical research during his lifetime. He gave $500 million to the Allen Institute for Brain Science, which he founded in 2003 in Seattle to catalyze brain research, and $125 million to establish the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in 2018. The philanthropist’s other major contributions included separate $100 million gifts to support the fight against Ebola, aiding the Allen Institute for Cell Science and funding the bioscience research initiative Allen Frontiers Group.

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Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

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May 23, 2024
Paintings By Forgotten Artist Kyohei Inukai Are Headed to the Brooklyn Museum

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Kyohei Inukai, Dorothy, (1933). Courtesy Brooklyn Museum

The Brooklyn Museum is adding five works to its collection by painter Kyohei Inukai, who was largely ostracized from New York’s art world during World War II due to his Japanese heritage. The works were gifted by Manhattan art collector and researcher Miyoko Davey, who has spent decades championing Inukai’s legacy.

Inukai, who died in 1954 at age 68, specialized in creating portraits of the elite figures of New York society. Davey’s donation of four portraits and one landscape supports the Brooklyn Museum’s goal of expanding its holdings by Japanese American artists.

Born in Okayama, Japan, Inukai immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager and studied at San Francisco’s Mark Hopkins Institute of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. He made his way to New York City by 1915 and was regularly the only Japanese artist admitted into exhibitions at the National Academy of Design and the Grand Central Art Galleries. His successful career as a portraitist included sittings with Madison Grant, the conservationist with eugenicist tendencies who helped found the Bronx Zoo, and Thomas J. Watson Sr., the former CEO of IBM.

SEE ALSO: Why Defining Exactly Who Is and Isn’t an Artist Matters

During World War II, however, his career took a turn. Like many other Japanese Americans, Inukai faced intense racism after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, was cast out of his social circles and was subsequently no longer able to make a living from his art. He captured this period of his life in an unfinished autobiography that was later published by Davey. “The tranquil air that spanned the sky is changed with crosscurrents of acrid recriminations,” wrote Inukai in his memoir, titled Confessions of a Heathen.

Miyoko Davey, an art collector on a mission

Davey, who included the autobiography in a 2014 monograph, first came across the artist’s work when she and her late husband John acquired Inukai’s portrait of his mistress Dorothy Hampton at Christie’s in 1988. Collecting dozens more paintings and a trove of archival materials relating to Inukai, she has spent the past few decades attempting to bring attention to the largely forgotten artist. The collector is also a supporter of organizations like New York’s Japan Society, which supports Japanese communities in the U.S., and in 2012 founded the John and Miyoko Davey Foundation to grant scholarships to Japanese students studying in America.

Despite falling into relative obscurity in the 20th Century, both Inukai and his son—a fellow artist who bears the same name as Inukai—have in recent years received more attention from art institutions and scholars, according to the Brooklyn Museum. The junior Inukai, who died in 1985 with an oeuvre of more than 2,000 abstract and pop artworks, was last year the subject of a solo exhibition at the Japan Society.

Now, two of Davey’s gifted Inukai works are set to be displayed in the Brooklyn Museum’s reinstalled American Art galleries when they open this October during the museum’s bicentennial celebration. The reinstallation will emphasize perspectives from historically excluded voices, including works by other Japanese American artists like Bumpei Usui, Chiura Obata, Hisako Hibi, Okada Kenzo and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. “It is a tremendous acquisition that falls perfectly in line with our mission for our reimagined American Art galleries: to expand the representation, engagement, and research of previously marginalized American artists,” said Stephanie Sparling Williams, the museum’s Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art, in a statement.

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Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

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May 16, 2024
Real Estate Developer Jordan Schnitzer Is Putting $10M Toward the Arts at Portland State University

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Jordan Schnitzer in 2023. Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Portland-based real estate developer, philanthropist and art collector Jordan Schnitzer hopes to boost the arts scene at Portland State University (PSU) with a $10 million gift. In addition to supporting the eponymous museum at the university, the funds will help PSU’s art and design school grow.

“An arts education is the best background to think creatively, to learn to be innovative, to help build our workforce and economy, and most importantly, to help solve society’s great challenges,” said Schnitzer in a statement, adding that his donation will not only help students but the entire Portland region. “In my opinion, this is a worthy philanthropic investment to help PSU continue to be an active part of a thriving downtown Portland.”

Half of Schnitzer’s funds will pay for the construction of a new building for PSU’s school of art and design, which will be renamed the Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design in recognition of the donation. The facility is scheduled to open by 2026 and will let PSU expand its key offerings, including a pioneering art and social practice program emphasizing the relationship between art, community engagement and social justice.

Another $4 million will support operations at a PSU museum launched in 2019 with another donation by Schnitzer. Known as the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU, it houses 20th- and 21st-century artworks from the philanthropist’s vast collection. The remaining $1 million will reinvigorate PSU’s urban campus through outdoor art, additional signage and lighting.

Schnitzer’s gift is a direct response to a call to action from Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, who earlier this year asked for business, civic and educational leaders to invest in downtown Portland. “The success of Portland State University is integral to the vision we share for downtown,” she said in a statement.

Arts and philanthropy run in the Schnitzer family

Schnitzer’s patronage of PSU follows a long line of family philanthropy. His mother Arlene opened the Fountain Gallery in the 1960s (one of Portland’s first professional galleries) while his father Harold founded Schnitzer Properties, the real estate development company Schnitzer runs today. The duo were generous contributors toward PSU, having established the university’s visiting professorship in art, Judaic studies program and the Arlene Schnitzer visual arts prize.

Their actions largely inspired Schnitzer’s activities in the art world. His collection, which primarily consists of contemporary prints and multiples, contains works by more than 1,500 artists, including Andy Warhol, Jeffrey Gibson, David Hockney and Kara Walker. In addition to showcasing items from his collection at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and art institutions at the University of Oregon and Washington State University, Schnitzer exhibits maintains his own Portland-based gallery and loans out pieces to museums across the globe.

“My parents often said ‘to whom much is given, much is expected,’ but this applies to all of us,” said Schnitzer. “With this significant contribution, one of the largest in PSU’s history, we are joining others who also are thankful for all the opportunities we have had living and working in downtown Portland.”

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Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

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April 8, 2024
On Arts Philanthropy: Why Everyone Wants to Be Komal Shah

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Komal Shah in front of a painting by Elizabeth Murray. Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

This February saw the death of Lord Jacob Rothschild, a philanthropist who did much for the arts in his lifetime and had recently spoken out about how disappointed he was to find that today’s wealthiest philanthropists are “not as interested in art as they once were.” His frustration is one shared by many organizations and artists alike who cannot understand why it is such an uphill struggle to convince, say, the Silicon Valley tech community, of the value the arts can have in a society.

One answer is to acknowledge, and perhaps even embrace, the fact that being involved with the arts can be a lot of fun, highly social and often, very glamorous. Lord Rothschild, for all the work he did for the arts, did not project fun and glamour. Hence the appeal of a new generation of philanthropic role models who are young, glamorous and even a little bit sexy. We’ve entered the era of philanthropists like Komal Shah, who are redefining what it means to support the arts.

For the past year, Komal Shah has been the collector du jour in art world circles. In 2023, the foundation she and her husband run launched a catalogue of their personal art collection titled “Making Their Mark: Art by Women in the Shah Garg Collection.” This was followed in November by an eponymous exhibition in New York, which is set to close at the end of March.

Shah has seemingly struck a chord in the art world. Not only do influential thinkers surround her—the catalogue was edited by curators Mark Godfrey (formerly of Tate Modern) and Katy Siegel (of SFMOMA), and Cecilia Alemani, Artistic Director of the 2022 Venice Biennale, curated the exhibition—but every media outlet from the New York Times to Harper’s Bazaar to the Financial Times has interviewed her and continues to court her to give keynote speeches. We are often asked by prospective clients who want to establish themselves as patrons of the arts, whether they, too, can be like Komal Shah. “What do I have to do? How much do I have to give? Who do I need to collaborate with?”

SEE ALSO: What’s Missing from the Art World? Giving Back

While it might seem superficial to some traditionalists that others would want to mirror Shah’s limelight, we believe there are two important lessons to be learned. First, whatever Shah is doing is encouraging others to take an interest in arts philanthropy, and that’s a good thing. Second, Shah’s rise did not just happen overnight.

It was over twelve years ago that Shah first became a trustee of the Asia Art Museum in San Francisco. Since then, she has gradually developed her giving and collecting, largely out of the public eye. In 2014, she joined the Director’s Circle at SFMoMA and helped fund acquisitions. After a few years, she became a trustee of SFMOMA and also the Tate Americas Foundation. She has provided exhibition support at the Hirshhorn Museum, backed Cecilia Alemani’s main exhibition at the 2022 Venice Biennale, and perhaps most interestingly, created the “Artists on the Future” annual conversation series at Stanford University featuring leading women in the arts like Lorna Simpson, Thelma Golden and Lynda Benglis. The point is that Shah had dedicating herself to the arts long before much of the world took notice—before magazines started asking for interviews, before the ‘Shah Garg Collection’ started to be mentioned on artist’s CVs and before she was included in ArtNews’ list of Top 200 Collectors.

Shah may have flown under the radar for so long because Silicon Valley, where she is based, has long been a blind spot for the art world. But beyond that, what the story shows is that it took over a decade of consistent engagement and dedication for others to see what she was doing and to want to emulate it.

There is a real need today for more positive role models for future philanthropists in the arts. Arguably, any nation that wants to give a real boost to its cultural landscape could do a lot worse than to assemble a council of experienced and dedicated philanthropists and development specialists to implement PR strategies to make arts philanthropy ‘cool’ again. Shah’s journey would be an ideal case study.

But although Lord Rothschild and Komal Shah seem about as far apart as two philanthropic icons can be, they both share important traits: passion, patience and persistence. You don’t simply wake up as Komal Shah; you grow, through years of commitment, into a role that shapes the future of the arts.

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Aurelie Cauchy and Leslie Ramos

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March 22, 2024