You wait ages for a major London gallery's fashionable fundraiser and two come along in the same week.
For many years the Serpentine Summer Party was the UK's top invite for the fashionably art-adjacent crowd and Tuesday night's event, hosted by Cate Blanchett and attended by the likes of former New York Mayor and gallery chairman Mike Bloomberg, was a suitably starry affair.
But last night it was the turn of Tate which raised over $1.37 million with a gala celebrating 25 years of Tate Modern attended by the great and the good from Bridget Riley and Steve McQueen to Cornelia Parker and Sarah Sze.
It also marked the launch of an endowment fund to secure Tate’s long-term future, with $58.9 million already raised with an aim to get to $205.5 million by 2030, and a shift from the organization that has accepted the days of lavish public funding are over.
In 2023, Tate ran a budget deficit of $12 million and the following year it had to dip into its reserves again.