Anita Ruth Zabludowicz is a British contemporary art collector and philanthropist. She is married to Poju Zabludowicz. Since the 1990s, Anita and Poju Zabludowicz have been accumulating a 500-artist, 5,000-piece collection of contemporary artwork, the Zabludowicz Collection. In 2015 Zabludowicz received an OBE for her services to the arts. She appears on Artnet's The 100 Most Powerful Women in Art list. The Sunday Times Rich List 2020 of the wealthiest people in the United Kingdom ranked her and her husband 95th with a personal net worth of £1,500 million.
Biography
Anita Steinman was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Her mother was an art historian and her father, Harry Steinman was a wholesale businessman and the local chairman of the Variety Club. She studied interior architecture at the Inchbald School of Design, London. Zabludowicz is married to Finnish-born Poju Zabludowicz. Anita and Poju Zabludowicz have sponsored exhibitions and art fairs, and organised various fundraising events. In 2014, they donated funds towards the realisation of the planned Helsinki Guggenheim. The Zabludowicz Center for Autoimmune Diseases opened in Sheba Medical Center through Anita and Poju Zabludowicz's donations. The center centralises under one roof all aspects of autoimmune research and treatment, and brings together physicians and researchers from multidisciplinary fields such as internal medicine, clinical immunology, autoimmunity, rheumatology, ophthalmology, neurology, obstetrics and gynaecology. In June 2016, it was announced that ARTA, a fine art shipping startup based in New York, has raised $1 million in capital from a group of institutional and strategic investors, among them Anita and Poju Zabludowicz.
Art collection
Zabludowicz first began collecting modern British art in 1994 when she bought a painting by Ben Nicholson.
Zabludowicz Collection
Since the 1990s, Anita and Poju Zabludowicz have been accumulating a 500-artist, 5,000-piece collection of contemporary artwork. They exhibit their private art collection at three different locations, one of them being 176, a gallery in a former 19th-century Methodist chapel in Chalk Farm, north London. Inaugurated in 2007, the Zabludowicz Collection's London project space presents exhibitions of collection works and new commissions by artists linked to the collection. 1500 Broadway houses a selection of works from the Zabludowicz Collection. The programme at 1500 consists of temporary exhibitions and events whilst the lobby is open to the public during office hours. Across three locations on Sarvisalo, an island in Loviisa, Finland, the Zabludowicz Collection has initiated an international residency programme for invited artists. The residency programme offers an environment for the production of art. In November 2015, it was announced that the Zabludowicz Collection will launch an artist residency programme in Las Vegas.
Reputation
Some art magazines and websites have listed Anita and Poju Zabludowicz in their annual rankings:
Anita and Poju Zabludowicz appear in ArtReview's Power 100 lists for 2006–2014 which assess those most powerful in the art world. In 2014, they were listed at number 97.
They appear in ARTnews's Top 200 Collectors lists for 2005–2017 which compile the world's most active art buyers.
Larry's List, an online database of art collectors, which ranks collectors according to Internet presence, institutional engagement, art fair participation, communications platforms, and the physical visibility and scale of their collection, has ranked them 3rd in the world.
They appear in ArtLyst's Alt Power 100 lists for 2011-2017 which compile art industry insiders who have made a major contribution to the discipline of contemporary art.
Anita Zabludowicz appears on Artnet's The 100 Most Powerful Women in Art list.
Personal life
Zabludowicz and her family reside mainly on The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead, a street in London referred to as Billionaire's Row, and have homes in Caesarea, Tel Aviv, and Sarvisalo, a small island in Finland. They purchased the house on The Bishops Avenue in 1989 and later purchased the adjacent house in 1997. The £60 million pair of "his and hers" mansions have an adjoining art gallery. They also own a 120-ft yacht. In 2020, Zabludowicz was ranked the 19th richest woman in the United Kingdom.
Awards
2015: Zabludowicz received an OBE for her services to the arts.
