Gala season is not too far away, and the city’s art-related nonprofits are beginning to reveal the lucky honorees who will be feted at their events.
Today, the World Monuments Fund, which works to preserve cultural heritage sites around the world, made its announcement, picking New York art collectors and philanthropists Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder to receive its annual Hadrian Award, which recognizes service to art and architecture.
A trustee of the Museum of Modern Art from 1995 to 2005, Mr. Lauder founded the Upper East Side’s Neue Galerie, which specializes in Austrian and German modern art, in 2001. Five years later, he reportedly paid $135 million to acquire a portrait by the Austrian Gustav Klimt for the museum.
Though The Observer could at first not believe it, The Hadrian Award is, in fact, named for the eponymous 2nd-century Roman emperor, whom, the World Monuments Foundation notes, was “a brilliant commander and administrator and a great patron of the arts.”
