The Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) has announced a generous gift from its long-time patron and namesake, the billionaire real estate developer Jorge M. Pérez.
Over the next 10 years, the museum will receive a $15 million donation: two thirds of the amount will be donated in cash, while the remaining $5 million will be given to the institution in the form of the donor’s over 200-piece strong collection of Cuban art.
The $10 million money donation comes with stipulations. Half of the amount will go to the museum’s endowment, while $1 million must be used for the acquisition of Cuban art and $4 million of Latin-American art generally.
The donated works, which include pieces by Hernan Bas and Los Carpinteros, will be featured in an exhibition in the fall of 2017.
“This tremendous gift is another affirmation of Jorge and Darlene Pérez’s commitment to Miami’s museum,” PAMM Director Franklin Sirmans said in a statement. “This gift significantly improves upon the museum’s holdings and adds depth to a vitally important area of the collection that Pérez has always championed since coming on as a board member more than 20 years ago.”
With the donation, PAMM will have the largest collection of contemporary Cuban art in the US. Pérez has already gifted work by Cuban modernists Amelia Peláez, Wifredo Lam, and Mario Carreño—along with works of other Latin American modernists—in previous donations. “I think if one place should have a strong Cuban collection, it should be Miami,” Pérez told the New York Times.
According to the Times, Pérez, who helped finance the construction of the museum’s new building in 2013, gifted the museum $40 million in cash and artworks in 2011. When the institution finally moved into its new Herzog & de Meuron-designed building, it also shed its former name, the Miami Art Museum.
It sounds like the billionaire still has a lot in store for the institution that bears his name. “This is just peanuts compared to what I’ll be giving to the museum,” Pérez told the Times.