Great art requires a certain level of financial backing to thrive. Beyond funding the research, artistic endeavors, and work necessary for creating beautiful art, donations can also go a long way. While great art has undoubtedly been created by artists holding day jobs and working at night, allowing an artist to feel unencumbered by financial stress can yield astounding results.
Similarly, museums need funding in order to acquire art for their displays, to properly compensate the artists so that they can continue to further their own work, and to keep the lights on to display the art to the public. This reflects the broader benefits museums provide by supporting artists and keeping audiences connected to art.
Griffin’s Donation
In 2022, the hedge fund Citadel famously decided to relocate the company’s headquarters from Chicago to Miami. In tandem with this, Kenneth C. Griffin, the founder and chief executive of Citadel, made Miami his home as well. Now, Griffin has made a major investment in his adoptive hometown’s biggest art museum. On Saturday, during its annual Art of the Party gala, the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) revealed it had received a $10m gift from Griffin, which will support its mission and enhance its collection.
“The Pérez Art Museum Miami is a world-class arts and cultural hub that enriches our great city,” Griffin said. “I am proud to support this outstanding institution in unison with the broader Miami community.”
Griffin was one of the gala’s two headline honorees, with the other being the Colombian artist Delcy Morelos. Morelos received the Pérez Prize at the event, which comes with an unrestricted $50,000 in cash funded by the museum’s namesake philanthropists, Jorge and Darlene Pérez. The gala raised a total of $1.5m to support the museum’s education programs, helping to inspire and cultivate future artists.
Honoring Morelos
“We’re thrilled to honor Delcy Morelos, whose powerful practice explores diverse cultural narratives,” the museum’s director, Franklin Sirmans, said. “We would also like to express our deepest gratitude to Ken Griffin: his commitment to giving back, in Miami and around the world, has left a lasting impact on the arts, our community, and Pamm.”
According to Forbes, Griffin’s current net worth is around $45.9b. Throughout his career, Griffin has given large sums to multiple museums, including $40m to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and $10m to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. He is also an art collector himself, with wide-ranging tastes. He reportedly spent a nine-figure sum to buy two Abstract Expressionist masterpieces by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning from fellow billionaire collector David Geffen.
Griffin’s Art History
In 2021, he outbid a Decentralized Autonomous Organisation (DAO) that had formed specifically to acquire a rare first edition of the US Constitution at a Sotheby’s auction, eventually winning the historic document for $43.2m. Last summer, Griffin was back at Sotheby’s, dropping $44.6m on a 27-foot-long Stegosaurus skeleton, making it the most valuable dinosaur fossil ever sold at auction.
The support of generous philanthropists is especially crucial for Florida arts organizations after Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed $32m in state arts funding for fiscal year 2025. Jorge Pérez was particularly outspoken in his criticism of that decision, stating: “This is just a horrible message to send.”
Griffin’s gift to PAMM comes as the art world’s collective attention is about to shift to Miami for the week of fairs, exhibition openings, and parties surrounding Art Basel Miami Beach. It also comes as other art museums in the region pursue major expansions. The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach is in the early stages of planning to build a new wing, supported in part by $20.1m in city-issued funds. In Miami’s Design District, the Institute of Contemporary Art bought the building that, until earlier this year, housed the de La Cruz Collection for $25m.
