Works by Degas, Bill Brandt Donated to Public Institutions in UK

Arts Council England has announced the results of the Cultural Gifts Scheme (CGS) and Alternative Acceptance (AIL) schemes for 2024-25. This cycle, 32 works of art have entered public collections, with a total value of nearly $80 million.

Highlights include pastel paintings by Edgar Degas Danse Rose (c. 1897-1901), gift to the National Gallery from the estate of Ann Marks; paintings by Max Liebermann and Max Pechstein, from the collection of CM Kauffmann and Dorothy Kauffmann, gift to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University Museum; a mahogany standing desk used by Prime Ministers Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill to the National Trust, which plans to display it at Hudon House in Buckinghamshire; and John-Paul Kernot to the Tate 77 photographs taken by photojournalist Bill Brandt.

This year’s report covers transfers from April 2024 to March 2025. Nicholas Serota, chairman of Arts Council England, said in the report that many of this year’s grants were going to regional institutions. He pointed to across-the-board reductions in public funding and procurement budgets.

The CGS and LIU programs are designed to keep artworks and objects of national importance in public museum and library collections while reducing the tax liability of the owners. In two examples from this cycle – paintings by Degas and the archives of novelist Richard Adams, which are housed at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library – the value of the donation exceeded the donor’s tax liability. In this case, the receiving institution will arrange to settle the difference with the quoting party.

A total of 461 items worth $727 million have been acquired from private owners through CGS and AIL in the past decade. This year’s report highlights several influential case studies of the work of Claude Monet, among others apt of giverny (1884), in the collection of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, since 2023; the archives of Stephen Hawking, donated to Cambridge University Library in 2021; and the model of Barbara Hepworth Orpheus (1956), at Hepworth Wakefield from 2020.