The Times explains why the $142m Francis Bacon triptych of Lucian Freud was shown so quickly in a museum in Portland, Oregon. At the time, the answer was given as taxes. But here the Times actually explains the process:
Dozens of important works have come to the Schnitzer in recent years, largely because of the tax break, museum officials believe — so many that the museum has a program called “Masterworks on Loan”; the featured works are housed in a second-floor gallery.
Similar loans — which rarely extend beyond a few months — also flow into other museums in Oregon, and occasionally New Hampshire and Delaware, all states that have neither a sales nor a use tax. […]
Experts said that for many years it was known in art circles as the “Norton Simon rule,” because Mr. Simon, an industrialist who died in 1993, was one of the first art collectors to make ample use of it with loans to several museums like the Portland Art Museum.
Buyers Find Tax Break on Art: Let It Hang Awhile in Oregon (NYTimes)
