A museum of one's own

In a climate where the richest collectors – Charles Saatchi, Roman Abramovich – are as celebrated as the artists they buy, we tend to forget that in the history of arts patronage, entrepreneurs-turned-connoisseurs are a young development. The world’s greatest museums – the Louvre, Hermitage, Prado – began as lavish civilisation-is-power statements by monarchs and emperors; private individuals did not emerge as significant museum patrons before the 19th century. Until a generation ago, those wanting to leave their mark in bricks and mortar usually did so in a room of their own – albeit a very grand one – in a state museum: the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Gallery at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing. But in the... [read full story]