TATE WOOS US PATRONS WITH COCKTAILS AT 10 DOWNING STREET

Tate’s US fund-raising organisation is offering its members the opportunity to attend a reception hosted by Tony and Cherie Blair at 10 Downing Street.

Supporters of Tate who spend at least $25,000 booking tables at a gala dinner in New York on 8 May are being invited to have drinks with the British Prime Minister and his wife in London on 16 June. This presupposes that Mr Blair will not have left office by then.

The Chair of the American Patrons of Tate, Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who is married to British financier Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, secured Mr Blair’s support.

“She knows the Prime Minister and he was thrilled to discover that Americans were supporting our fund-raising gala in New York so he offered to host a drinks party,” says Richard Hamilton, director of the American Patrons of Tate. The offer was made after Mr Blair and his family had spent 10 days in Miami Beach just after Christmas, according to Mr Hamilton.

Tickets for the gala dinner at the Riverfront Pavilion Midtown at 39th Street and West Side Highway cost $25,000 for half a table or $50,000 for an entire table. To date, 30 tables have been booked. All of the money raised by the dinner will be used to purchase art for Tate.

Those who have secured tables and an invitation to 10 Downing Street include Latin America’s richest man, Carlos Slim Helu, the Mexican telecoms tycoon whose fortune is estimated at $30 billion, Jeanne Donovan Fisher, the widow of Morgan Stanley chairman Richard B. Fisher, Donald Marron, founder and ceo of private equity investment firm Lightyear Capital, who built one of the largest corporate collections in the US when...
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