David and Claire Guggenheim have donated $2 million to UC San Diego to name a gallery inside the university's new arts complex opening in spring 2027.

The David and Claire Guggenheim Gallery will serve as the entry point to the Strauss Family Gallery, a contemporary art space taking shape within the Triton Center on campus, according to the university.

The gift carries four decades of La Jolla roots.

The Guggenheims became patrons of La Jolla Playhouse in 1984, one year after the theater reopened on the UC San Diego campus. David Guggenheim still serves on the Playhouse's Planned Giving Committee.

"I have always loved art and sculpture, and I wanted to support a true gallery – a permanent place for people to experience art," David Guggenheim said in the university's announcement Thursday, Aug. 27. "The Strauss is going to be a very special addition to the university, and we are thrilled to be part of it."

The couple moved from the East Coast to San Diego in 1981. While living in University City, they frequently walked through the UC San Diego campus. In 1983, David Guggenheim joined the inaugural class of the UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener program.

Their connection to the university deepened in 2018 when they joined the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UC San Diego. David Guggenheim later became chair of the Osher Advisory Council.

The $2 million gallery gift follows a pattern. In 2022, the Guggenheims made a $1 million gift to name the Guggenheim Theatre at UC San Diego Park & Market in downtown San Diego.

David Guggenheim's ties to art run in the family. His great-aunt owned the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in New York City and introduced him to the city's art world while he was beginning his career at IBM in the late 1960s. He inherited a collection that includes European paintings, one dating to 1580, as well as contemporary art and sculpture.

The Strauss Family Gallery was established in 2023 with a gift from Matthew and Iris Strauss and the Strauss Family Foundation that included more than 100 pieces of contemporary art. The gallery features four spaces plus a terrace and is designed to showcase sculpture, video, sound and expanded reality.

Jess Berlanga Taylor, executive director and chief campus curator at UC San Diego, said the Guggenheims' gift "helps make that vision possible" for a space she described as focused on contemporary art at the intersection of science and technology.

The Triton Center website describes the Guggenheim Gallery as a "social space for experiencing where art and life mix." Other naming opportunities within the Strauss listed on the site include the White Box Gallery, Black Box Gallery, Gray Box Gallery and a terrace.

The Strauss Family Gallery is scheduled to open in spring 2027. No specific opening date has been announced.