ROBYN SASSEN
Pictured Jack Ginsberg (left) with artist Willem Boshoff, and Boshoff’s work Druid’s Table, in the Wits Art Museum collection.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY WITS ART MUSEUM
“I have sat on a few boards who give money away, which is great. Giving other people’s money away especially is good fun,” he laughs. “But I always say to them, don’t be a Philistine. Just allocate five per cent to the arts. And they often do that.”
Ginsberg is an accountant by profession, but has been collecting art for nearly 45 years; he has amassed arguably the finest collection of artists books in Africa.
“The nice thing is that if you are a patron of the arts, you can channel your patronage into your favourite thing. So, 18 years ago, I started my own foundation: the Ampersand Foundation.
“The idea was to send SA artists to New York really to experience the art there. There’s no requirement for the bursary: it’s a gift. We’ve had about 130 residencies to date in the 18 years.” The fellowship comprises a funded two-month residency at the Ampersand apartment in New York, which is owned by Ginsberg and his foundation.
“SA artists at this distance from the major centres of art are inclined to underestimate their worth and it’s only when they are exposed to other artists that they realise how good they are.”
But Ginsberg’s philanthropic contribution to the arts is not only about New York. While he helps fund the Artist Proof Studio in Newtown Johannesburg, he also enjoys an abiding interest in Wits Art Museum:
“I have been interested in the Wits Art Galleries, as they were called, for many years. Then the university underwent changes and the gallery was relegated to a dusty basement. We managed to raise something like R50 million to rebuild it. It is wonderful to walk around, so many years later, and see exactly what has happened.
“My role at WAM is now in raising funds, creating a small endowment fund of my own from which they will be able to buy art, and of course, giving art. And I enjoy it extraordinarily.”
Ginsberg joins the ranks of winners like Jabulani Ncubuka who has been proactive in chess development projects, Gayle McWalter and Gahlia Brogneri who co-founded the Adonia Musati Project for Refugees and Paul Bruns who steers the Hlumelelisa project for convicted offenders, among others.
Inyathelo, in existence in celebrating achievement in South Africa for eight years, describes its mission as “to acknowledge, celebrate and honour this choice of personal giving as contribute towards sustainable social change in our country”.
The awards ceremony took place at the Zip Zap Circus Dome in Cape Town on November 6.
