BIG SPENDER

NY’s Met Museum Gets Cubist Donation

Worth more than $1 billion.

Don’t let those guards at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York shame you into a donation—the museum just got a huge boost. Philanthropist and cosmetics tycoon Leonard Lauder has promised the museum his collection of 78 cubist paintings, sculptures, and drawings—valued at more than $1 billion. The museum’s board approved the donation on Tuesday. The new collection will definitely give the nearby Museum of Modern Art a run for its money, making the Met’s collection as good as—if not better than—MoMA’s collection of cubists. “It’s an unreproducible collection, something museum directors only dream about,” said Thomas Campbell, the Met’s director.