Western European art foundations create invaluable opportunities for research and exhibition by artists, curators, and scholars. These activities are often documented and disseminated via high-quality publications. This article highlights an important but under-recognized collecting resource for academic and museum libraries by profiling several major foundations and recommending selected titles.

Western European art foundation publications represent a select yet important collecting and research niche for art librarians and scholars. Faced with tight budgets, to what extent should art libraries purchase such esoteric materials? How can these publications be acquired? Which titles, by which foundations, are worth buying?

This article aims to present a variety of publications by private European foundations, illustrated by notable examples, as an introduction for art librarians with pertinent collection missions and resources who desire to increase their holdings of these specialized materials. The first section describes art and cultural foundations publications by type; the second describes the history and production of representative Western European foundations with substantial publishing programs. Recommendations for individual titles are offered throughout, as well as information and advice on ordering and acquisitions. The article concludes with a selection of “Twelve Top Titles,” choice monographs that, in our opinion, are worthy of consideration for most academic and art museum libraries. These do not require a major investment; the selected titles are available for under $75.

Publications produced by private art foundations are noteworthy in several ways. Works of art owned by private foundations and discussed in their publications may not be covered elsewhere, with the exception of catalogues raisonnés. Therefore, within the collecting mission of a research collection, particularly where the artists in question are major figures, the coverage provided by foundation publications is likely to be distinct from that found in other sources. Further, artists may have been directly involved with foundations through residencies and exhibitions, so additional unique documentation of artists and their work may spring from that contact.

Major private art foundations constitute a global cultural presence and are significant players in the advancement of art scholarship through their activities, publications, and the institutes and museums they maintain: The Barnes, Frick, Getty, Guggenheim, and Phillips in this country; Bauhaus Dessau, Berggruen, Beyeler, Beulas, Caixa Catalunya, Cartier, Cartier-Bresson, Cini, Custodia, de Galbert, Giacometti, Gianadda, Godia, Guerlain, Gulbenkian, Hahnloser-Bühler, l'Hermitage, Le Corbusier, Maeght, MAPFRE, March, Mazzotta, Miró, Pinault, Prada, Reinhart, Salomon, Singer-Polignac, Tàpies, Thyssen-Bornemisza, Vierny, and Wildenstein in Western Europe, among many others. At their best, private foundations champion the arts with verve and dedication, nobly supporting humanism as the modern equivalents of Renaissance princes. The most innovative foundations offer bold international forums to showcase new art and deliver the pleasures of unexpected discoveries through incongruous groupings or juxtapositions that may open new dimensions of thought and experience.

Prestigious foundations with serious scholarly missions fulfill a number of important roles: collecting and preserving art, promoting and financing new art, documenting contemporary art through artist patronage and archival collections, educating through public programs, supporting artists-in-residence and involving artists in events and exhibitions, showcasing new media (such as video art), casting new light on visual expression and creating contrasts and concordances between disciplines by juxtaposing motifs and themes across artists of different generations, origins, and fields, whether well-known or unknown. They establish special collaborative relationships with artists, cities and regions. Their collections mirror not only the collectors' personalities and interests, but also their perceptions of art and artists. This gives them a different focus than that of museums with encyclopedic collections.

Private art foundations are notoriously difficult to establish in Europe. In France, for example, they require the approval of both the culture minister and the interior minister, and permission is not granted easily. Past problems have made the government wary when assessing a potential foundation's cultural contribution and long-term viability. A case in point is the Fondation Alberto and Annette Giacometti, one of the individual artist foundations whose publications are featured below, which required fifteen years to create.

Art patronage, whether corporate or individual, is a complex enterprise. For some sponsors and foundations, it is highly desirable to draw public attention to “new art” as part of marketing efforts to promote themselves as being “in tune with the times” in art as well as business. In an era when the richest collectors are as celebrated as the artists they buy, the speed with which new money shapes scholarly endeavor is daunting. Note the surge of recent exhibitions and publications on Gustav Klimt, for example, which seems to vindicate Ronald Lauer's extravagant acquisitions for the Neue Galerie—or casino resort developer Stephen Wynn's ostentatious gallery in Las Vegas. Whether scholarly or self-aggrandizing, today's proliferation of private museums and foundations invigorates the art landscape. Collectors today may choose not to bequeath art to large, established museums, where limited gallery space means that their prized works could go straight into storage and stay there.

By contrast, a dedicated foundation museum maintains the integrity of the collection, keeping together outstanding groups of works assembled with personal taste (however eccentric), usually in buildings designed to showcase them. Partners in the sublime in the recent past include the Menil Collection in Houston, domiciled in a campus designed by Renzo Piano, and the François Pinault Collection in Venice's Palazzo Grassi, renovated by Tadao Ando. Private foundations with public museums and programs mean more art is on display, and therefore more exposure for more people to see and experience. Free from political constraints, private foundations often collect more diversely and flatten geographical and chronological hierarchies. In addition to collecting and exhibiting, often showing rarely-seen, privately-held art, they offer a range of cultural activities, and support original scholarship and publishing. By so doing, they redefine art patronage in the twenty-first century.

A shining example in the twentieth century was Aimé Maeght, justly honored as “one of the great enablers of twentieth-century art.” A lithographer, publisher, and dealer, Maeght's ambitious publishing ventures included artists' books and graphic editions, exhibition catalogues, and sumptuous magazines such as Derrière le miroir and L'Art vivant. Maeght's wisdom and industry in establishing the artist-centered, academic Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, near Nice, France is a model worthy of respect and emulation.