Displaying items by tag: yinka shonibare

Graduates of Goldsmiths, University of London who have become household names in contemporary art, including Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley, Sarah Lucas, Yinka Shonibare and Michael Craig-Martin, are donating works to raise funds for a new art gallery at their old art school. Sam Taylor-Johnson, Julian Opie and Steve McQueen, whose "Twelve Years a Slave" won an Oscar last year, have also given pieces.

The works, including a spot painting and a swirl painting by Hirst, a bronze by Lucas, and one of Gormley’s cast iron standing men, are expected to raise most of the £2.8 million cost of the gallery at a Christie’s auction next month.

As a small-town Midwestern boy in the 1940s, Robert Duncan saved souvenir license plates from cereal boxes, not knowing that he was igniting a passion for collecting painting and sculpture.

"The stakes are just higher in contemporary art," says Mr. Duncan, now 72, "and the game is more fun."

Mr. Duncan and his wife, Karen, have spent decades building a collection of contemporary art that former museum director George Neubert ranks among the 50 best in the country. It encompasses nearly 2,000 works by such artists as Louise Bourgeois, Bruce Nauman, Yinka Shonibare and Kiki Smith.

The couple live in Lincoln, Neb., but maintain strong ties with their hometown of Clarinda, Iowa, where they went on their first date as junior-high students. The Duncans are turning the 1908 Carnegie library there into the Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum.