11/09/2001

On the 4 ^th of September, the German doctor and art collector, 79 year old Gustav Rau, signed a document in which he promised to donate part of his collection to UNICEF. Born in Stuttgart in 1922, Gustav Rau spent most of his life as a doctor in Africa. He founded a hospital in Zaire and launched an educational programme which benefits 30,000 children a year. Several times a year he would leave his remote village near the Rwandan border to fly to London, New York or Paris, to buy at auction or from dealers. Dr Rau wants his $ 450,000,000 (€ 520,000,000) collection, which spans five centuries, to be divided into two parts after his death. The 200 most important pictures will go the Musée du Luxembourg, Paris where a selection will be on permanent display and the remainder kept in store or sent on loan. Any profits from exhibitions would benefit Third World countries, including his hospital. The remaining 250 paintings will be sold over a period of years, with the proceeds used to fund UNICEF projects. In forty years, he has collected important pieces by artists such as Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Max Liebermann, Edward Munch and El Greco. (James Goulder)