Soledad Lorenzo donates her legacy to Reina Sofía

The Reina Sofía museum will soon house the legacy of the gallery owner Soledad Lorenzo (Santander, 1937), who retired from the profession in 2012. It consists of more than 400 works in all the formats typical of contemporary art, including important pieces from her team of artists, a brilliant list with names such as Antoni Tàpies, Tony Oursler, Miquel Barceló, José María Sicilia, José Manuel Broto or Eduardo Chillida

The signing of the agreement, announced today by the newspaper El Confidencial, was scheduled for the end of September and is part of, according to museum sources, a policy of attracting "important collections that help fill relevant gaps in the Queen's story." “In this case, it is important, for example, the incorporation of funds from Juan Uslé or Victoria Civera. Of the latter, the collection is practically orphaned”.

The set has a "high market value", which underlines, according to these sources, the act of "generosity" of the gallery owner. She "she could sell most of the pieces tomorrow at auction or leave them as an inheritance to her relatives." She will not pay any money for the donation to the museum (which, after a period of four years, would become the owner of the legacy). Lorenzo will not obtain relief or any tax benefit either.

The way in which the legacy will be incorporated into the story of the Reina Sofía is still being studied, but the art center does not rule out including it more or less permanently as a tribute to the "history of a gallery", which also " it is from a time in Spain”: the eighties, a decade in which Lorenzo stood out in the profession for his close and protective way of working with artists.

The operation is part of a set of museum agreements with important collections in the world, such as that of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros or that of Reinhard Onnasch, which has allowed the entry and exhibition at the Reina of great names of abstract expressionism, such as Clyfford Still . The process, common currency in the United States, consists of several phases: first, the funds are received as a loan; then, as a promised gift (which does not carry tax exemptions but gives the donor influence over the decisions and life of the museum); so that in the end they fully enter the collection.

Lorenzo's case is exceptional. The donation is in his case unconditional and denotes, according to the sources cited, an "enormous commitment to what he considers his museum."