It was all treat and no trick on Oct. 31 when The Strauss Family Foundation donated a collection of more than 100 contemporary art pieces and a 6,000-square-foot property which currently houses the collection to UC San Diego. The property is to be sold to fund the Matthew and Iris Strauss Family Foundation Endowment at UC San Diego, which will provide maintenance of the collection in perpetuity.
The Strauss Family Foundation – founded by commercial real estate magnate Mathew Strauss and his wife Iris – is considered to hold one of the leading art collections in the world.
The collection donated to UC San Diego comprises art ranging from paintings to mixed-media art to sculptures and includes pieces by renowned global artists such as Zhang Huan, Fred Wilson, Sabine Moritz, Yin Xiuzhen, Nalini Malani, Ken Nolan, Donald Sultan, Jörg Immendorff and Ross Blechner.
The collection will eventually be housed in a special Strauss Family Meta Gallery that will be part of UC San Diego’s new Triton Center, which officially broke ground on Oct. 31 and is to open in 2026.
The Strauss family has a long history of support for UC San Diego, most recently in fundraising to create the Iris and Matthew Strauss Center for Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer and to help fund the development of a cancer vaccine.
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In more arts economy news, the recently released Arts & Economic Prosperity 6 (AEP6) – an economic and social impact study of the nation’s nonprofit arts and culture industry – noted that arts spending had a more than $2 billion economic impact in the San Diego region.
The study included all 2022 spending by nonprofit art and cultural organizations and arts-related spending by art event attendees. National City reported more than $4.8 million in combined spending; the City of Coronado Cultural Arts Commission reported more than $39 million; the Balboa Park Cultural District reported more than $775 million; and the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture reported more than $1.18 billion in arts-related spending.
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The MiraCosta College Foundation announced last month that its five-year “This Changes Everything” fundrasing initiative has already exceeded its goal, rasing $10.6 million from thousands of local philanthropists, corporations, foundations and organizations. The effort, which was launched pre-pandemic, was MiraCosta Foundation’s first-ever comprehensive campaign.
MiraCosta College has a nearly 50% student body from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. Over the course of the campaign, more than 5,000 students have received scholarships to offset tuition and an additional 5,200 students have received emergency financial support for basic needs, such as food scarcity, transportation and housing.
The results of the campaign were announced at the college’s annual Community Leaders Breakfast, along with the release of MiraCosta’s Economic Impact Report, which analyzed the fiscal year between 2021 and 2022 and found the college had a $648 million impact in the region.
