THE ART NEWSPAPER, No. 220, JANUARY 2011 Features 33
Foundations
“The sleeping giant of philanthropy”How artist-endowed foundations are growing in number and financial strength
By András Szántó
The economic crunch notwithstanding, artiststoday are more prosperous than ever. Forthose who are successful, affluence can
lead to generosity. Many artists donate works toworthy causes and institutions. Some supportyounger artists or serve on non-profit boards.Damien Hirst’s “Red” auction, in early 2008, co-hosted with Bono, raised an epic $43m forHIV/Aids relief in Africa—a signal event in theupsurge of philanthropy that accompanied therecent global boom.
All that generosity, however, pales incomparison with giving by artists after theirlifetimes. Significant philanthropy—in the artworld as elsewhere—typically happensposthumously, through foundations. A largeproportion of the starting assets for such “artist-endowed foundations” takes the form of works ofart, archives and ephemera from an artist’s estate.These assets are deployed through donations,licensing and copyright fees, as well as sales onthe art market to perpetuate the artist’s creativelegacy, and in some cases, to raise funds forgrant-making programmes.
Artist-endowed foundations are a sleepinggiant of philanthropy. They are rapidly expandingin number—close to 300 have been identified inthe US at the last count—and financial strength,commanding approximately $2.7bn in combinedassets. That’s a relatively modest sum next to thehalf a trillion dollars held in total by USfoundations. But artist-endowed foundations areespecially important in the art world. Althoughsome do fund non-cultural causes, many staytightly focused on the arts, bestowing theirlargesse on museums, research, publications,education, scholarships and various means ofsupport for living artists. And with anunprecedented cohort of well-to-do painters andsculptors among the older generations, the goldenage of artist foundations may yet be ahead.
Critical mass
Even so, foundations established by visual artistsremain something of a mystery. Until recently,their operations were rarely appreciated or evenunderstood beyond a narrow circle ofphilanthropic professionals. Lately, however, thefield has begun to emerge from obscurity.
In 2000, a group of executives created theCouncil of Artists Foundations to network andshare ideas. November 2010 saw the release of“The Artist as Philanthropist; Strengthening theNext Generation of Artist-EndowedFoundations”, an Aspen Institute study intendedto ensure that resources left by artists “are put tooptimal charitable use”. The massive two-volumereport (disclosure: I wrote a chapter onfoundations and the press) is chock-a-block withdata, based on 239 organisations with availableinformation, and suggestions about effectivepractices for artist-philanthropists. Among thekey findings:● In the decade between 1996-2005, artist-endowed foundations almost doubled in number(slightly exceeding the torrid pace of growth inthe overall foundation field) and their combinedassets more than tripled.● The 30 most active foundations disbursed$52.5m in grants in total in 2008 (excluding one-time extraordinary grants)—that’s comparable tothe arts and cultural giving of the venerable FordFoundation ($54.1m) or the John S. and James L.Knight Foundation ($55.3m). ● Some of the more generous artists foundationsstill have living donors, including the Alex KatzFoundation ($2.9m in 2008 grants), the EllsworthKelly Foundation ($1.1m), and the LeRoyNeiman Foundation ($784,000).● Foundations established by artists tend to bequite small, with 73% reporting assets under$5m.● Close to half of all the assets held by artist-endowed foundations are works of art. Thismakes their operations fundamentally differentfrom conventional foundations, which typicallyinvest their endowments in financial assets. ● Of foundations associated with deceasedartists, 60% with assets of $1m or more are tiedto artists who were not survived bychildren/lineal descendants. In other words, theirbenefactors were less motivated by the desire tominimise estate taxes, and more concerned aboutcommitting a life’s work to public benefit.
“There is much more to artists andphilanthropy than meets the eye,” said ChristineVincent, a former Ford Foundation executive whospearheaded the study. The connection looks backon a surprisingly long and varied history.
The first recorded example was the RotchTravelling Scholarship established in 1883 by
Arthur Rotch, a Boston architect. The oldestcontinually operating entity in the field is theLouis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, active since1918. The Samson Foundation, founded by thefamily of William Glackens in 1959, pioneeredthe financing of grants from the sale of works ofart. In 1967, Charles E. Burchfield became thefirst artist to designate an organisation to sell hisworks after his death to make grants.
More foundations were launched by artists inthe 1960s, when Isamu Noguchi set up anorganisation, and when Jerome Hill, a wealthyfilm-maker and painter, created the JeromeFoundation, based in Minneapolis, still one of the
largest and most adventurous US arts funders. Bythe 1970s, a new wave of philanthropy wasdrawing on the success of prominent post-warartists—among them Mark Rothko and AdolphGottlieb. The list of foundation start-ups since1980 reads like a modern art pantheon: BarnettNewman, Robert Motherwell, Joseph Cornell,Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Mapplethorpe, KeithHaring, Sam Francis, Robert Rauschenberg, LarryRivers, Joan Mitchell, Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts,Gordon Parks, Cy Twombly, Louise Bourgeois,Andrew Wyeth, Jasper Johns—and so on.
The most widely recognised entities in thesector are the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (thelargest US donor to individual artists, with morethan 3,400 grants awarded since 1985, totallingmore than $54m) and the Andy WarholFoundation for the Visual Arts, which has thelargest asset base ($395m in 2008). Warholfamously willed his estate—including hundredsof pictures and 10,000 objects, which took tendays to auction off at Sotheby’s in 1988—to “theadvancement of the visual arts”. The foundationwent on to establish the Andy Warhol Museum,in Pittsburgh, and it is noted for its large grantprogramme and its vigorous licensing of Warholimagery to sustain charitable activities.
Most artist-endowed foundations, however,keep a much lower profile. Hundreds of artistfoundations exist as modestly funded shells,awaiting an eventual bequest.
According to foundation experts, severaldilemmas loom over the field as it emerges frominfancy. First, the scope of activity: should afoundation focus on educational and researchactivities, or should it sell assets to fund grants(or some mix of the two)?
The reliance on art as an asset gives rise tounique complications. If a foundation declares itsart holdings as “charitable use assets”, it must putthem to charitable use. According to the Aspenstudy, more than half of all artist-foundationassets—most being works of art—are designatedthis way. Many foundations function as researchand documentation centres or develop exhibitionloan programmes using their collections andarchives as charitable use assets. But this canexpose them to the vagaries of the art market. If a
foundation chooses to sell art to sustain a grantprogramme, it may have to liquidate art assetseven in a bad market.
Second, how to deal with family members and“insiders”—dealers, assistants, collectors,friends—who may have a personal stake in themarket value of the artist? “There is a bigresponsibility to be extremely clear and non-abusive,” says art historian Jack Cowart,founding executive director of the RoyLichtenstein Foundation. “If a foundation lookslike just a family’s way to enhance its socialstanding, it could be an easy target to attack.”
Third, how to maximise professionalism andimpact? Given the highly technical nature ofartist-endowed foundation governance, experttraining of staff and board members is aparamount concern. Larger foundations areexperimenting with ways to offer expertise tosmaller ones. There is talk of pooling resources.Some time-consuming and controversialactivities—including authentication, which haslanded some foundations in hot water—may lendthemselves to centralisation.
While some of these issues are likely to attractscrutiny, there can be no doubt that artist-endowed foundations are going to be anincreasingly vital lifeline for museums. Onequarter of the more than 125 foundations withassets over $1m are actively contributing tocollections—mostly works by the benefactor, butalso creations by other artists whom the donormay have known and collected.
The largest donations have helped establishmuseums, curatorial departments, and newfacilities and collections. So-called “estatedistribution foundations” are specifically formedto distribute an artist’s assets remaining afterother bequests; the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundationis the prime example. For the recipientinstitutions, the stakes can be momentous. TheJosef and Anni Albers Foundation has grantedmore than 250 works to 34 museums in the USand abroad. A gift of 200 photographs reportedlyvalued at $3m by the Robert MapplethorpeFoundation, announced in 1992, coupled with anaming grant of $2m, helped create aphotography gallery and programme at theSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum. And in 2005,the Judith Rothschild Foundation gave acontemporary drawing collection of works bymore than 600 artists, valued at $60m, to theMuseum of Modern Art in New York.
Deferred gratification
Perhaps the biggest curiosity of artists’philanthropy is how few artists devote time to itwhile they are still alive. The average age ofartists who set up foundations has risen from 64prior to 1986 to 74 by 2005, according to theAspen study. Meanwhile, the portion offoundations being formed posthumously is on therise, from 50% of those established before 1986,to 69% of those formed since 2000.
There may be a practical explanation for thisdeferment of philanthropic involvement. Livingartists can deduct only the cost of materials forcharitable contributions of their works of art,while US laws permit a fair market valuecharitable deduction from the estate tax. In otherwords, there is a greater tax advantage to beingphilanthropic for artists after they die.
Even so, for Charles Bergman, chairman andchief executive of the Pollock-KrasnerFoundation, some artists are missing out. “Torelegate philanthropic activity to a foundation tobe created after the death of the artist,” he says“is to miss the opportunity of having one’s ownlife enriched by the satisfaction of creativephilanthropy” ■❑ For full report see: www.aspeninstitute.org/psi/a-ef-report
“The Irascibles”: members of the artist group, including Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning andAdolph Gottlieb, donated generously during their lifetimes and posthumously
There can be no doubt thatartist-endowed foundations are going to be an increasingly vital lifeline for museums
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Solid foundations: (left to right) Joan Mitchell,Keith Haring and Willem de Kooning Lo
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