Among the billionaire property developers, computer software designers and hedge funders who grace the 2015 ARTnews top 200 collectors list—out this week—a growing number have also established private museums or foundations.
Of the first 20 collectors on the list, which is organised alphabetically, 30% have opened spaces to house private collections and archives—many in recent years. They include the Russian collector Dasha Zhukova, who runs the recently reopened Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow; the French luxury goods magnate Bernaud Arnault, whose Fondation Louis Vuitton launched a $135m museum in Paris last year; and the US patrons Edythe and Eli Broad, who are building a $140m private museum, due to open in Los Angeles in September.
Although on the rise, private museums and foundations are not a new phenomenon. In the first 20 there are also a number of more established founders, including the Norwegian billionaire Hans Rasmus Astrup, who opened the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo in 1993 and moved to a larger building in 2012; the German collector Udo Brandhorst, who set up a foundation with his late wife Anette in 1993; and the US newspaper heir Peter Brant, who launched the Brant Foundation in 1996 and opened an art centre in 2009.
Meanwhile, the US collectors Irma and Norman Braman are financing the construction of a new 37,500 sq. ft home for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami.
