Cosmetics king Leonard Lauder gives New York's Met cubist makeover NEW York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art is getting a billion-dollar cubist collection it says will "transform" it. The museum announced yesterday that cosmetics executive and philanthropist Leonard Lauder had pledged his renowned collection of cubist works. The collection of 78 works includes 33 pieces by Pablo Picasso, 17 by Georges Braque, 14 by Juan Gris and 14 by Fernand Leger and is considered one of the most pre-eminent cubist collections in the world. It's valued at more than $US1 billion ($951 million). Museum director Thomas Campbell said the gift was "truly transformational" and would fill in a critical area in the museum's collection. "In one fell swoop this puts the Met at the forefront of early 20th-century art," Thomas P. Campbell, the Met's director, told The New York Times. It is an unreproducible collection, something museum directors only dream about. While Mr Lauder declined to say who else courted his collection, officials in the museum world have said the National Gallery of Art in Washington was among them. But as a New Yorker aware that his art could radically transform one of the city's most historic institutions, he saw the Met as a perfect fit. "Whenever I've given something to a museum, I've wanted it to be transformative," Mr Lauder said. This wasn't a bidding war. I went knocking, and the door opened easily. In the New York art scene, which is heavily populated with big-time collectors, Mr Lauder is a singular figure. While many of his peers have made splashy acquisitions, seduced by trends, he has quietly and steadily built a museum-worthy collection with a single focus, on cubism. His gift comes without restrictions so it can be displayed as curators see fit. Mr Lauder, 80, has also spearheaded the creation of a research centre for modern art at the Met, supported by a $US22 million endowment that he has helped finance along with museum trustees and supporters. The collection, which Mr Lauder began building more than 40 years ago, is a product of taste and timing. "I liked the aesthetic," he said on a recent afternoon in his Manhattan apartment. He was in the living room, staring at a still life by Picasso richly punctuated with bits of newspaper and sand. "Back then," he said, "a lot was still available, because nobody really wanted it." The Lauder collection is expected to be presented in an exhibition opening next year. The museum said a new research centre for modern art would be created at the museum. Scholars have said the collection is among the world's greatest, as good as, if not better than, the renowned cubist paintings, drawings and sculptures in institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Together they tell the story of a movement that revolutionised modern art and they fill a glaring gap in the Met's collection, which has been notably weak in early 20th-century art.