A new art foundation was established at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne at the end of last year to encourage donations to the museum. The first, around 200 works by Sigmar Polke (pictured, Leave the Lab and Enter the Office, 1991), has already reached the museum. This gift, from the collection of Ulrich Reininghaus and Anna Friebe-Reininghaus, was one of the main reasons for setting up the foundation at the end of 2008, just before the end of the German tax year. “Tax-wise, donors are much better off giving to the foundation rather than to the museum itself,” explains museum spokeswoman Annegret Buchholtz. A legal amendment from late 2007 allows the donors to set off up to E1m against tax for their gift. The donations belong to the foundation, which then loans the pieces for an unlimited time to the museum. The foundation, which received assets of E50,000 from the inheritance of the Cologne artists Bernard Schultze and Ursula Schultze-Bluhm, can also support any of the museum’s activities that directly benefit the arts or sciences.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as ‘Foundation lures collectors'