Displaying items by tag: bequest

As a junior talent agent at MCA a half-century ago, Jerry Perenchio was assigned to accompany British actor Charles Laughton as he toured the U.S. giving staged theatrical readings.

In his off-hours, Laughton wanted to visit art museums, and Perenchio went along with him. A lifelong fascination with art had begun, and as Perenchio rose in the entertainment industry — ultimately becoming chairman of Univision Communications — he used his wealth to amass some of the world's greatest art.

At his Bel-Air home Wednesday, the 83-year-old Perenchio said that he will be giving almost all of it — at least 47 works valued at $500 million — to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Jewish World Congress president Ronald Lauder has publicly threatened the Kunstmuseum Bern with an "avalanche" of lawsuits if the institution accepts the collection of approximately 1,300 artworks bequeathed to it by the late Cornelius Gurlitt - stated in an article published by German weekly "Der Spiegel." The museum is currently still in the process of making this delicate decision - whether or not to accept the collection - which includes works by Henri Matisse, Max Liebermann, Otto Dix, and Marc Chagall, among others famous artists.

Gurlitt died on May 6th of this year, leaving the entire collection to the Swiss museum - but nearly 600 works from the collection are suspected to be of questionable provenance, possibly Nazi loot.

The Swiss art gallery named as the sole heir of reclusive German art collector Cornelius Gurlitt is to accept his bequest of masterpieces which include works looted by the Nazis from Jews, a Swiss paper reported on Sunday.

Gurlitt, who died in May aged 81, had secretly stored hundreds of works by the likes of Chagall and Picasso at his Munich apartment and a house in nearby Salzburg, Austria.

The collection, worth an estimated 1 billion euros (0.78 billion pounds), contains an as yet undetermined number of works taken by the Nazis from their Jewish owners during World War Two.

Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado may be missing a boat load of art, but it’s also found quite the pile of cash. According to a report in Germany’s FAZ, the institution has discovered a previously unknown Swiss bank account containing over €1 million, which is part of a fortune bequeathed to it in 1991.

The account belonged to Manuel Villaescusa Ferrero, a lawyer and real estate mogul who bequeathed the entirety of his €42 million ($56 million) fortune to the Prado to be used for new acquisitions. The substantial gift has already been used to purchase works by El Greco, Georges de La Tour, Sánchez Cotán, Juan van der Hamen y Léon and Goya.

Good fortune or just plain chance sometimes dictates the collecting directions of art museums. That is certainly the case with the Indianapolis Museum of Art, which received a bequest of 96 Neo-Impressionist works in 1979 from W.J. Holliday, a local publisher and art collector. Combined with a significant landscape it owned previously by Georges Seurat and seven targeted acquisitions since, the 131-year-old institution lays claim to being the most important repository in the U.S. of works in the eye-grabbing pointillist style.

Capitalizing on that signature strength, the museum has organized "Face to Face," which it bills as the first-ever look at Neo-Impressionist portraiture, a subject that has received less attention than the landscapes, seascapes and urban scenes more typically associated with the style. The two-venue exhibition was seen earlier this year at the ING Cultural Centre in Brussels.

The Delaware Art Museum will auction off one of its iconic Pre-Raphaelite paintings, "Isabella and the Pot of Basil" at Christie's in London next month, museum officials announced Tuesday. The William Holman Hunt oil painting, purchased by the museum in 1947, is one of as many as four works the museum will sell over the next several months to pay off construction debt and replenish its endowment. The Delaware museum boasts the most significant collection of Pre-Raphaelite works outside of the United Kingdom.

Museum officials have declined to release the names of the other works, explaining that it could hurt the market for private sales. They have promised not to sell any works acquired through gift or bequest. Winslow Homer's "Milking Time," one of the museum's most treasured works purchased in 1967, disappeared from its wall and collections database last month. Museum officials won't confirm that it is scheduled to be sold.

A federal judge has dismissed the claims of a Russian man who said that he was the rightful owner of Vincent van Gogh’s “The Night Cafe.” The painting, which was created in 1888, has been on display at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, for around 50 years.

Pierre Konowaloff, who claimed that the work was stolen from his family during the Russian revolution, asked Yale for the return of the painting or $120 million to $150 million in damages. Yale sued in 2009 to assert its ownership rights and to prevent Konowaloff from claiming the work. Judge Alvin Thompson sided with the University, citing the Act of State doctrine, which says that every sovereign state is bound to respect the independence of every other sovereign state, and that courts will not criticize another government’s acts done within its own territory.

Konowaloff claimed that his great-grandfather purchased “The Night Cafe” in 1908 and that his property was nationalized by Russia during the Communist revolution. The painting was later sold by the Soviet government.

Yale received the van Gogh painting through a bequest from alumnus Stephen Carlton Clark, who had purchased the painting from a New York City gallery in 1933 or 1934. 

The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT has received a $9.6 million gift from the estate of Charles H. Schwartz, a former museum member. The generous donation, which is the largest bequest in the Atheneum’s history, will help the museum establish an endowment to develop its collection of English and European art from the 18th century and earlier.

The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest public art museum in the United States and boasts one of the most extensive European art collections in the country, with exceptionally strong Old Master and Impressionist holdings. The museum is in the midst of a $33 million renovation project and plans to reinstall its collection of European paintings, sculpture and decorative arts before the restoration wraps up in September 2015.  

Schwartz, who joined the museum in 1987, was a member of the Society of Daniel Wadsworth -- the Atheneum’s premier membership program -- until he passed away in 1995. Schwartz was an avid collector of Old Master paintings as well as European decorative arts. David W. Dangremond, the President of the museum’s Board of Trustees, said, “It is an honor to receive such a transformative gift from a man who was a visionary in his own collecting endeavors, and who was a dear friend to many in the Wadsworth family. Museums thrive on the generosity and foresight of donors like Charles Schwartz.”

The American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA has received a major gift of $1 million from the late G. Gordon Osborne and his wife, Marjorie, who passed away last year. Gordon Osborne was a longtime supporter of the institution and played a pivotal role in establishing its research library. Prior to the $1 million bequest, which will go towards the museum’s endowment fund, the Osbornes had donated an additional $1.5 million to the institution.

The American Textile History Museum is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution and aims to tell America’s story through the art, history and science of textiles. The museum’s vast collection includes tools, spinning wheels, hand looms, early production machines, textile prints, fabric samples, hooked rugs, handwoven linens, costumes and textile-related decorative arts objects.     

The Museum of Modern Art in New York will honor the legendary gallerist and collector Ileana Sonnabend with an exhibition of works that were shown in her galleries in Paris and New York between the 1960s and 1980s. Sonnabend, who opened the Sonnabend Gallery in Paris in 1962, was instrumental in bringing American art of the 1960s, most notably Pop Art and Minimalism, to Europe. Sonnabend opened a New York outpost in 1970 and conversely, popularized European art of the 1970s, including the Arte Povera movement, in the U.S.

Ileana Sonabend: Ambassador for the New will open on December 21, 2013 and celebrates the Sonnabend family’s generous bequest of Robert Rauschenberg’s seminal mixed media assemblage Canyon (1959) to MoMA. The exhibition will present works by approximately 30 artists including Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, John Baldessari and Jeff Koons. Works will be pulled from MoMA’s own collection as well as other public and private holdings.  

Ileana Sonabend: Ambassador for the New will be on view at MoMA through April 21, 2014.