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Art collector gives $50m to Ringling museum

Dr. Helga Wall-Apelt's gift is the largest ever received by Sarasota's Ringling Museum of Art.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published January 18, 2006

	[Times photo, 2000]
	Dr. Helga Wall-Apelt is shown with part of her collection of Buddhist & Asian statues.

SARASOTA - A Sarasota art collector and philanthropist is funding a new gallery of Asian art at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, part of a gift to Florida State University expected to top $50 million, the museum said.

Dr. Helga Wall-Apelt's gift is the largest ever received by the museum and the single largest gift to FSU, the museum announced Tuesday. It includes $4 million for expansion, a $4 million endowment, a promised gift of her Asian art collection and financial gifts for ongoing support of the center.

"This extraordinary gift greatly expands the range of art that will be shown at the Ringling," museum Executive Director John Wetenhall said. "It is more than an philanthropic act; it is gift of great passion and vision."

Wall-Apelt's gift enables the museum to create a wing for the display and study of Asian Art. Renovation and new construction will provide over 10,000 square feet of display area, storage space, a seminar room and support space for museum activities.

Wall-Apelt, a German native who has practiced as an internist and radiologist, has been collecting Asian art pieces in Europe and Asia for nearly half a century. She is the founder of Sarasota's Museum of Asian Art.

Ringling is the state art museum of Florida and has been under the governance of FSU since 2000.

[Last modified January 18, 2006, 17:23:26]