Gallerist Soledad Lorenzo Donates Her Art Collection to Reina Sofia Museum

Famed gallerist Soledad Lorenzo has gifted her art collection, totaling near 400 works of art, to the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, the museum reported yesterday. The 385 works are by 90 artists, mostly Spanish, and include everything from sculpture and paintings, to photography, installations and video. The museum will receive the works over the course of the next five years.

A gift of this size and magnitude hardly has precedent in the Spanish art world (though Anthony D’Offay did something similar with his gallery’s collection, when he closed it). Among the artists whose work is included are: Juan Uslé, who with 31 works of art has the most included, Pablo Palazuelo, George Condo, Adrià Julia, Sergio Prego, Txomin Badiola, Pérez Villalta, José Manuel Broto, José María Sicilia, Miquel Barceló, Pello Irazu, Victoria Civera, Antoni Tàpíes, José Guerrero, and Soledad Sevilla.

Soledad Lorenzo ran her own gallery for over 26 years before closing it in 2012, and was an influential figure in the European art world in the decades before. Lorenzo explained to El Mundo that because she doesn’t have children, and the burden of maintaining so many art works would be difficult for non-professionals, it was an easy choice to donate the works to the Reina Sofia.

“I wanted my collection to end in a public museum, where it can serve society,” Lorenzo said. “One of the meanings of art, for me, is to educate us, so there is no better place than the Reina Sofia Museum.”