Los Angeles Art Museum Overwhelmed to Receive $500 Million in Rare Paintings

The donation comes as Los Angeles County supervisors on Wednesday approved $125 million in funding and future financing for a new LACMA building designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor that will replace four of the museum’s seven existing strictures. Perenchio’s gift stipulates the new building, which will require an additional $475 million in donations to complete, must be finished before the museum receives the paintings.

LACMA plans to exhibit select works from Perenchio’s collection, rarely seen in public before, in the spring of 2015, coinciding with the museum’s 50th anniversary. Highlights from the gift include Nymphéas, a classic painting of water lilies, along with two other works by French impressionist painter Monet.

Nympheas, by French impressionist painter Claude Monet, is among works donated to LACMA by Jerry Perenchio.

“Hopefully, my gift will serve as a catalyst to encourage other collectors to do the same and also stimulate major private donations,” Perenchio, who made about $1.3 billion on the sale of Univision Communications in 2007, said in the statement.

LACMA is one of the biggest museums on the West Coast, even after losing out on significant collections that resulted in other museums in Los Angeles including Norton Simon, who decided to build a museum in Pasadena in 1975, and Armand Hammer, who opened a museum in 1990 in Westwood Village, a neighborhood of Los Angeles near UCLA.

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