We can only save the arts if we stop sneering at big business

Let’s hear it for Leonard Blavatnik — again. The Odesa-born British-American billionaire, 65, has just donated £10 million towards the National Portrait Gallery’s renovation. That’s his second big donation to a London arts institution this year. Another multimillion-pound gift will enable the Imperial War Museum to open a gallery of war photography, film and art. And prior to that? Beneficiaries of Blavatnik’s philanthropy in the capital now include the Courtauld Gallery (£10 million), Tate Modern (£50 million) and the V&A (£5 million). He also bought the Theatre Royal Haymarket for a reputed £45 million. Outside London there’s also the small matter of his £75 million donation to Oxford University and the £7.7 million he chipped in this year to stop the Honresfield Library of literary manuscripts being sold abroad.