A Fresh Approach to the Art of Healing
The Financial Times, 6/3/06
On a rainy, spring day a few weeks ago, representatives of the Guggenheim Museum arrived at Donald and Barbara Jonas’s Fifth Avenue apartment. They came bearing a Pablo Picasso painting. The couple had lent a Jackson Pollock for the current exhibition of his works on paper, and the Picasso was meant to fill the spot on their wall. The loan indicates the Jonases’ high standing as art collectors. A bigger clue to their standing was last spring’s sale at Christie’s of 15 abstract expressionist paintings that had been hanging in their home. The group – including works by Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky and Mark Rothko – set five auction records and brought $44.2m that they promptly started giving away.
“We decided a year-and-a-half ago that the art we’d been collecting over 30 years had gone up so much in value that we could do something in philanthropy with it,” says Donald Jonas. “So we sold half of it and gave it to the Jewish Communal Fund.” The proceeds, which were free of capital gains tax and are being administered by a donor-advised fund, fund the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence.