Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Do American Museums Make Good Use of the Private Funds They Raise to Build & Operate?

July 26, 2016 by Marion Maneker

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ben Davis has an op-ed in the New York Times late last week wondering whether the unique US model for funding art museum through private benefactors wasn’t creating a real problem with over-investment in building projects and under-investment in operating funds.

Add the dissipation of support through various private museum initiatives and you get Davis making a good case that philanthropy misallocates resources.

Davis uses as an example the Met’s need to expand into Contemporary art to continue to activate its donor base.

According to the Association of Art Museum Directors, for every $8 visitors spend at museums in North America, museums spend $55. So running a museum isn’t a great business, despite the crowds.

According to The Art Newspaper, close to $5 billion from 2007 to 2014 was spent in the United States on new expansions, more than the other 37 countries the newspaper examined put together. The United States is also, the publication notes, unique in the degree to which it funds culture through private philanthropy, rather than public money.

For museum executives, the dirty secret of expansions has been that they are often motivated by the need to have some exciting new thing to rally board members and interest potential patrons. These institutions depend heavily on rich people to fund them. Those rich people like to pay for flashy new buildings; no one wants to donate to boring old museum upkeep.

Missing from Davis’s account is one important criticism: Does the Met’s own management make good fiscal decisions? After all, the museum was able to save more than $750,000 on the salaries of the two top marketing executives it just let go.

How the Rich Are Hurting the Museums They Fund  (The New York Times)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Focus On: Impressionist & ModernFocus On: Impressionist & Modern
  • Rare ‘Penitent Magdalene’ by Leonardo Disciple to Sell in ParisRare ‘Penitent Magdalene’ by Leonardo Disciple to Sell in Paris
  • What Art Collectors Do in Auction House ElevatorsWhat Art Collectors Do in Auction House Elevators
  • The Response to Sotheby's London Cont. Evening SaleThe Response to Sotheby's London Cont. Evening Sale
  • Christie's Imp/Mod Press Conf. (NY, May 2010)Christie's Imp/Mod Press Conf. (NY, May 2010)
  • Christie’s to Sell Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi Along with Warhol’s 60 Last Suppers in NovemberChristie’s to Sell Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi Along with Warhol’s 60 Last Suppers in November

Filed Under: General

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • $10 M. Picasso Portrait Unseen for Decades to Sell at Bonhams
  • David Bowie Talks About Art (with Julian Schnabel)
  • Sotheby's Pulls in a $9m David Hockney for November
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • Lost Lempicka Discovered at Sotheby's
  • Vienna Secession Painting, Long Thought to Be Lost, Sets a Record at Auction
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor