Lurking behind the story of Spencer and Marlene Hays’s massive donation of 600 works to the Musé d’Orsay in Paris is the conditions that the couple negotiated with the French government. Following the Edlis’s donation to the Art Institute of Chicago, which got similar long-term conditions, and the Fisher family’s long-term loan to SFMoMA, the idea that a collector’s work remains under their control after they’ve donated it to an institution is gaining currency.

Part of the problem may be the trend toward private museum building which forces public institutions to counter with Barnes Collection-like offers to collectors.

Here’s the pair in the New York Times:Continue Reading