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£100m art gift is the greatest since the Tate was founded
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent27.02.08
London dealer Anthony d'Offay has sold art worth more than £125 million to the nation for the £26.5 million it originally cost him.
The unprecedented collection includes more than 700 works by postwar stars such as Joseph Beuys, Gilbert and George, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol.
It will be jointly owned and managed by the Tate in London and the National Galleries of Scotland.
Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota said the "gift" was one of the largest ever made in this country, on a par with Henry Tate's founding donation.
"Anthony is making an incredible donation of the major part of his personal wealth. It is an extraordinary act of philanthropy. I don't know of anything else equivalent anywhere else in the world."
The works were considered so important that the British and Scottish Governments each stumped up £10 million to help secure them.
Sir Nicholas said the quality and range would "completely transform the opportunity to experience contemporary art in the UK".
The Tate had no works by the photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Diane Arbus until now and only a handful of pieces by artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Sol LeWitt, Ron Mueck and Ed Ruscha. The gifts would take up one and a half floors of Tate Modern but the deal has been struck so that the work will also be seen in partner galleries across the country from the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill to the Pier Arts Centre in Orkney.
The new collection will be known as Artist Rooms - artists will be represented by so many works they can be shown in a room or even rooms.
Sir Nicholas said Mr d'Offay hoped the gift would prove "an example to others". "One of the examples he gives is, you don't have to die in order to give a bequest of this importance to the nation. There are ways of doing it in your own lifetime."
Mr d'Offay, 68, shut his gallery in 2001 after three decades as one of London's most important dealers of 20th century art. "The moment we closed the gallery we started to think about what we could do that would be really important and useful," he said.
"Our concern had always been to give students and young people and young artists the opportunity to see the work across the UK. What we did was try to make sure that the works of art were important and the right works and spectacular in their own way."
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has paid the Treasury £14.6 million of tax which Mr d'Offay would otherwise have owed.
The National Heritage Memorial Fund gave £7million and the Art Fund charity gave £1 million. The first Artist Rooms will open next spring.
