Art: your legacy to future generations. A guide to leaving a gift in your Will to the Art Fund

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1 Art: your legacy to future generations A guide to leaving a gift in your Will to the Art Fund

2 About the Art Fund Thank you The Art Fund is the national fundraising charity for art. Since 1903 we have raised money to help more than 700 museums and galleries acquire great works of art and build their collections for everyone to enjoy. Over the last five years we have given 26million to secure the acquisition of works of art worth more than 204million, from ancient treasures and Old Masters to contemporary paintings and sculpture. The Art Fund assists public collections in many ways, not only through giving grants for acquisitions, but also by helping museums share their collections effectively with the public, and supporting the curators who look after these collections. We don t receive any government funding but rely on the generous support of over 105,000 members, as well as trusts, foundations and other donors. We are grateful to you for considering making a gift to the Art Fund in your Will. With the support of art lovers across the UK, the Art Fund has been helping museums and galleries to buy great works of art and share them with the public for over a hundred years. But what of the next hundred years and beyond? This booklet explains how a gift in your Will to the Art Fund could make a huge difference to public collections in the UK. It also provides further advice about what to consider when making your Will. artfund.org Cover: A masterpiece from Francesco Guardi s early career, Venice: the Fondamenta Nuove with the Lagoon and the Island of San Michele (c.1758) recreates the experience of British travellers confronting the sheer beauty and singularity of Venice for the first time. It was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum in 2013 thanks to a grant from the Art Fund made possible by a gift from the estate of Sir Denis Mahon. Right: the Hockley pendant, A rare survival of pre-reformation English devotional jewellery, unearthed in the Essex countryside and acquired by the British Museum thanks to 20,000 of Art Fund support. 2 3

3 Art matters Art can inspire, baffle and delight. It can lift the spirits and help us to make sense of the world we live in. It can provoke, educate and entertain. Art, in its broadest sense, enhances life. Most of us experience art in museums and galleries, of which the UK has over 1,800, from the small treasures in the north of Scotland or tip of Cornwall, to the world-leading institutions such as the British Museum, V&A and Tate. They collect, conserve, research and display objects from the prehistoric to Renaissance sculpture, and from Victorian landscape paintings to contemporary installations. They are open to all; many are free; and we want to ensure that they will be there for future generations. For all the grand buildings, the collection is the real lifeblood of any museum. These collections must constantly evolve and expand to help give existing works of art fresh context, or to truly transform our understanding and appreciation of an artist, movement or period. Individual objects and collections are the reason why we go to museums: people return time and again to visit their favourite works, and to discover new ones. Left: Edouard Manet, Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus, A highlyfinished study for one of the sitters in Manet s masterpiece Le Balcon. Thanks to an exceptional legacy gift, the Art Fund offered a grant of 850,000 to help the Ashmolean Museum acquire the work in

4 How you can make a difference The Art Fund exists to help museums build and display their collections, for everyone to enjoy. We want as many people as possible to be able to experience art. We support museums through our grant-giving programmes, and campaign to make it easier for museums to develop their collections. We rely on our supporters to be able to do this. Including the Art Fund in your Will is one of the most important ways to donate: every year legacies help our work to have an even greater impact on public collections. A gift in your Will is also a means to ensure that you can continue to support a cause that you care about beyond your lifetime. With many museums and galleries facing significant funding cuts, there is already, and we expect there will continue to be, a growing demand for our support in future. Not only that, but to help museums acquire the greatest works of art, we often need to be prepared to offer support at very short notice. We increasingly rely on legacies to enable us to act urgently and when the need is greatest. Sometimes the opportunity to acquire a work previously in a private collection, or perhaps even previously unknown (a recently discovered hoard of treasure, for example), cannot be planned for. Funds need to be raised quickly, often to a short deadline when there is an export stop or an auction sale, for example. A gift in your Will would help us to manage our resources, so that we can act urgently to offer support when there is great need. By pledging a grant early on in the acquisition process, we provide endorsement and leverage for other funders so your support goes even further. Above: Grayson Perry, The Annunciation of the Virgin Deal, from the tapestry series The Vanity of Small Differences, In addition to supporting the acquisition, the Art Fund partnered with the Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre London, and British Council to support a national tour of the series in Above: Pietro Lorenzetti, Christ Between Saints Peter and Paul, c Thought to be a fragment of an altarpiece, this early Italian work brings a new dimension to the Ferens Art Gallery collection. A grant of 200,000 helped to keep the work in the UK when it was under threat of export. 6 7

5 What have previous legacies helped us achieve? Gifts in Wills make such a significant difference to our work. Large or small, all these gifts combine to help us do a number of crucial things which otherwise would not happen. In recent years, for example, funds from gifts in Wills have contributed to the acquisition of some exceptional works of art. In 2011 we were able to give our highest ever grant, of 2million, towards the acquisition of Titian s Diana and Callisto for the National Gallery and National Galleries of Scotland. In 2013 legacies helped us offer another exceptional grant of 1million towards the purchase of John Constable s Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1831) and a related programme to tour and interpret the work across five museums: Tate, National Museum Wales, National Galleries of Scotland, Colchester and Ipswich Museums, and Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. More recently, we have been able to offer a major grant of 650,000 and simultaneously launch a public appeal to save Van Dyck s final self-portrait for the National Portrait Gallery. Also thanks to gifts in Wills, we are able to make an ongoing commitment to developing a range of broader programmes dedicated to helping support museums to collect. While grants for acquisitions will always remain at the heart of what we do, the ability to also develop curatorial expertise or help museums share their collections better means acquisitions can have greater impact. Left: John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, A famous late work from the revered Romantic painter, this magnificent landscape can now be enjoyed throughout the UK thanks to gifts in Wills. 8 9

6 Above: Pablo Picasso, Still Life Under Lamp, One of a rare series of progressive linocut proofs demonstrating the artist s astonishing technical innovation and creativity. The Art Fund offered 200,000 to enable the British Museum to secure the acquisition. Top right: Titian, Diana and Callisto, One of the most celebrated and admired paintings in the European tradition, acquired with an exceptional Art Fund grant of 2million made possible by legacy gifts. Bottom right: John Piper, Newhaven, The Castle, A grant of 35,000 helped Towner, Eastbourne to acquire this local scene demonstrating the artist s inventive use of collage

7 What to do if you want to leave a gift in your Will To make a Will, or to update an existing Will, we recommend that you contact a solicitor or appropriately qualified Will-writing professional. If you need help finding a solicitor, The Law Society s online listings are one way to find a firm local to you. There are a number of different types of gift to consider. Your solicitor will be able to explain these and other examples in more detail, in the context of the plans for your broader estate: Pecuniary legacy This is a gift of a specified sum of money. To preserve the value from inflation, we recommend that you ask your solicitor about tying the gift to the Retail Price Index. Specific bequest The gift of an asset such as property, shares, etc. Such an asset can be left to the Art Fund for subsequent sale. Residuary gift The residue of your estate is everything that remains after all the other gifts have been distributed and debts paid. You may want to leave all or a percentage of the residue to the Art Fund. Conditional legacy A gift which only takes effect when a certain condition is met. For example, you may allocate a share of your estate to a friend or relative, but direct that the Art Fund receives that share if he or she has predeceased you. Above: Anthony Van Dyck, Self-portrait, Funds from gifts in Wills ensured that the Art Fund could act decisively to launch a public appeal to help save this magnificent work. Reversionary legacy This allows one beneficiary to use an asset during their lifetime, with the whole or a portion reverting to the Art Fund on their death

8 What to do if you want to leave a gift in your Will Contact us A gift in your Will which is unrestricted is always the most helpful, as it allows us to use your gift where there is greatest need at that time. However, if you are considering restricting your legacy gift to a particular area of our work, please do contact us for further information. The following wording can be adapted by your solicitor to suit the type of gift you wish to leave. I give, devise and bequeath to the National Art Collections Fund (operating name the Art Fund), registered charity number in England and Wales and SC in Scotland the sum of xxx (xxx pounds) or the whole (or xxx share) of my residuary estate or [insert details of other gift] for its general purposes and I declare that the receipt of the Treasurer or a finance officer of the National Art Collections Fund shall be a sufficient discharge therefore. It is important that the Art Fund s registered charity number is included in the Will since this is a unique means to identify us. As a registered charity, a gift to the Art Fund in your Will is tax free. If you think your estate might be liable to Inheritance Tax, you can ask your solicitor for further information about making a tax-effective Will. You might also be interested to know about the recently-introduced reduced rate of Inheritance Tax for those estates where 10% or more is left to charity. Thank you for considering leaving a gift in your Will to the Art Fund. If you would like to know more about any particular aspect of our work, or if you have a query about anything in this booklet, please get in touch. If you decide to leave a gift in your Will to the Art Fund, we would love to hear from you. We would like to thank you and keep you more closely involved with our work through occasional special communications and events. For more information please contact: Sarah Tuppen Development Assistant stuppen@artfund.org The Art Fund 2 Granary Square King s Cross London N1C 4BH This booklet was published in February Cover: Image courtesy Ashmolean Museum David Gowers. Page 4: Image courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro Grayson Perry. Photo: Stephen White. Page 7: Image courtesy of Tate. Page 9: The Piper Estate. The Art Fund is the operating name of the National Art Collections Fund, a charity registered in England and Wales (209174) and Scotland (SC038331)

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