Perrotin and its artists have made a €6m donation to the Pompidou—could the move set a precedent?

On Monday (16 September), Perrotin sent out an unusual announcement that the gallery and its artists have donated 23 works of art, worth €6m, to Paris’s Musée National d’Art Moderne–Centre Georges Pompidou. The mega gallery, not shy of publicity, heralded the joint gift with a press release; the Pompidou, so far, has not.

There appears to be little precedent for such a large, high profile gift by a commercial gallery and many of its artists into a public museum’s permanent collection. Seventeen of Perrotin’s stable of 68 artists donated works: Jean-Marie Appriou, Genesis Belanger, Sophie Calle, Maurizio Cattelan, Johan Creten, Elmgreen & Dragset, Lionel Estève, Bernard Frize, Laurent Grasso, JR, Bharti Kher, Klara Kristalova, Takashi Murakami, Jean- Michel Othoniel, Paola Pivi, Tavares Strachan and Emma Webster.

Neither the gallery nor the artists have received any money for the donated works, which in total are valued at around €6m—more than three times the Pompidou’s paltry annual acquisition budget of €1.8m. The works will be exhibited on level four of the Centre Pompidou from October.

The works have been selected by the Pompidou’s director Xavier Rey and the museum’s curators to illustrate a “wide panorama of contemporary art from the past 20 years”, according to Perrotin's statement. "Representing various nationalities, ages, and artistic practices, the artists selected by the Centre Pompidou form a unique and coherent whole."

The gallery's founder, Emmanuel Perrotin, tells The Art Newspaper: “This donation is possible thanks to the trusting relationships I have forged with my artists over time. We have shared wonderful times together, some of us for over 30 years. We have built long-term relationships. In my business, it’s frustrating to always be stuck in the short-term of exhibitions. The idea here with the artists is to leave an indelible trace.”

Rey says the works and artists "were selected by the Centre Pompidou, and our vision for our collection aligned with the generosity of these artists and their gallery". He describes Emmanuel Perrotin as "a true catalyst and very involved with this donation". 

Rey continues: "We’ve been able to add works from artists already present in our collection, who are already well-known because they have shown their work in group exhibitions [Bharti Kher in Paris Delhi Bombay in 2011 or Maurizio Cattelan in Traces du Sacré in 2008) or solo shows [Sophie Calle, Bernard Frize, Jean-Michel Othoniel], while also turning our attention to artists who fit our acquisitions policy and our exhibition planning who were not represented in our collection [Emma Webster, Johan Creten, JR, Takashi Murakami]. These pieces complement the museum’s collection and will become part of our rich history.”

He says: “All our artists dream of being in the Centre Pompidou collections.” And that is true—while these artists have not received any money for the works donated, the conferred value of the Pompidou’s endorsement immeasurable, for the reputation of artists and gallery alike.

Perrotin tells The Art Newspaper the gallery has not benefitted from any tax relief as a result of the donation and thanks to the French concept of “inalienability” (works of art in French museums are considered public property and can never be sold) the works will never be deaccessioned. “This inalienability is, in a way, a quality guarantee, because it implies that the museum carefully selects the artists and the works to be part of the permanent collection,” Perrotin says. “This notion of inalienability was one of the points I put forward when pitching the project to the artists.” 

“The gift of a selection of works represented by a single institution is unusual but may create a precedent,” says Adrian Ellis, the director of AEA Consulting, which works with museums and other cultural institutions. “The Pompidou probably needs to do two things: first, it should confirm publicly that there were no conditions attached to the gift, or—if there were—it should make clear what conditions they have accepted and why; and second, it should provide an account of the significance of the works from the Pompidou's perspective and why these works by these artists constitute appropriate additions to its collection, individually.”

As Ellis says, these are not obscure or early career artists “so the rationale may be self-evident. But it needs to be stated in a way that can be evaluated critically and debated. There is always an impact on the market value of an artist's overall market position when works are acquired by a prestigious museum. That may possibly be the rationale for the gift, but it is important that it is clear that it was not the rational for its acceptance.”

This is not the first donation made by Perrotin and its artists to the Pompidou, but it is by far the largest and Perrotin says it is “a significant step in the history of my gallery.” Previous gifts have included two videos by Xavier Veilhan in 2002 and 2003 and a sculpture in 2017, an installation by Jean-Michel Othoniel in 2005, Le Petit Theatre de Peau d’Ane, a film by Laurent Grasso in 2020 and two works by Kenji Yanobe in 1996 and 2000.

One notable, though distinct, example of a dealer gifting a large group of works is that of Anthony D’Offay’s sizeable donation of his stock to the Tate and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2008, several years after he retired in 2002. Although described by the Tate as a “donation”, the collection was offered as a tax efficient sale/gift hybrid and D’Offay was paid £26.5m for 725 works valued at £125m. (Both galleries gave back works on loan in 2020 following accusations against D’Offay relating to sexual harassment, which he denies, but the works acquired in 2008 remain in their collections.)

Perrotin says his gift was in part inspired by D’Offay, as well as the advisers Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner’s donation to the Pompidou in 2016. “Very early in my career, I was impressed to see that Plight by Joseph Beuys from 1985 was purchased for the Centre Pompidou in 1989 with the participation of gallerist Anthony D'Offay and David Sylvester in memory of the artist,” Perrotin says. “The name on the museum label paid tribute to the gallerist who brought recognition to the artist and his work. I was very moved by this approach, and ever since, have nurtured the desire to do likewise, as have many of the artists I champion.”

It has been a year of change for Perrotin. In February, he ended "by mutual agreement" his collaboration with the art dealers Tom-David Bastok and Dylan Lessel, with whom in 2021 he opened a five-storey space at 8 Avenue Matignon, focusing on the secondary market. At the same time, Bastok and Lessel also bought Perrotin’s shares in Perrotin Dubai, another secondary market gallery, which only opened in November 2022. It now operates as Bastok Lessel Dubai.

Last June, Perrotin entered talks to sell a 60% stake in the gallery to Colony Investment Management (Colony IM), a French real estate, credit and private equity business, in order to grow the company. The deal was expected to complete in the second half of 2023. When asked for an update this week, a Perrotin spokesperson told The Art Newspaper that the gallery “would like to communicate in due time” the status of the merger.