July 29, 1999 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Art benefactors like the late Paul Mellon and the publishing magnate Walter Annenberg represent a passing generation of donors who saw the world of collecting evolve from a “genteel domain of a privileged few to a competitive business” dominated by a new kind of wealthy patron, Art & Antiques magazine says in its summer issue.
“Collecting today isn’t what it was in Annenberg’s and Mellon’s heyday — and neither is running a museum,” the magazine says. At a time when institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York, and the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, “have huge staffs, numerous departments and major merchandising arms, executives offer something beyond their hefty wallets: They know how to run a big business.”
Among the new breed of art benefactors are the Lauder brothers — Ronald and Leonard — whose fortunes stem from the Estee Lauder cosmetics empire. Ronald is leading a $650-million expansion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the magazine says. Leonard has acquired hundreds of works for the nearby Whitney Museum of American Art and chaired a fund-raising drive for a $50-million expansion of the museum.
“Snagging a name artist’s best work now is like acquiring a small company,” the magazine writes. “While Mellon and Annenberg amassed their art independently, today’s captains of industry are more likely to join forces in the cause of their pet museums, pooling their buying power to acquire the choicest treasures.”
Mr. Mellon, who died in February, gave away his art collection “almost as fast as he acquired it,” the magazine says. He donated 913 works to the National Gallery of Art, and when his wife and fellow collector, Rachel (Bunny) Lambert Mellon, dies, the museum will receive another 100 works, including ones by van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Pierre Bonnard, and Winslow Homer, according to Art & Antiques.
On the other hand, Mr. Annenberg, who is 91, has hung on to his 53 paintings, keeping them part of the time at his home in Palo Alto, Cal., and part of the time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which he has chosen as his collection’s future permanent home.
