page_title: Effects of the Great Recession on museums
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Effects of the Great Recession on museums / Background
context_page_description: Art museums in the United States and the United Kingdom have been hit especially hard by the 2008–2012 global recession. Dwindling endowments from wealthy patrons forced some museums to make difficult and controversial decisions to deaccession artwork from their collections to gain funds, or in the case of the Rose Art Museum, to close the institution and sell the entire collection.
  Such actions have prompted censure from Museum organizations such as the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in the UK and the Association of Art Museum Directors in the US. These organizations charge that the actions of their members were in violation of not only their ethics code but also the core of their mission- to provide access to a fund of cultural heritage for future scholarship- by selling works to private buyers for purposes other than funding new acquisitions. Consideration of the dire financial state of these institutions, and the intensifying effect that any punitive action by an ethics organization will have on the finances of an individual museum, has fostered debate on the merits of deaccessioning.
context_section_description: Art museums have struggled to meet their operating costs for years, especially as many have "suggested donations" rather than entrance fees, or have no entrance fees whatsoever, relying on endowments and membership dues. In 2006, this began to change at many museums: on 3 June 2006, the Art Institute of Chicago announced that its suggested donation of $12 would become mandatory, and in July of that year the Metropolitan Museum of Art raised its suggested admission fee from $15 to $20.
  On 1 October 2007, the board of Randolph College decided to auction four works from its collection in order to raise funds for the college: Peaceable Kingdom, by Edward Hicks; Men of the Docks, by George Bellows; Through the Arroyo, by Ernest Hennings; and Troubadour, by Rufino Tamayo. The sale was halted in November when a court injunction against it was granted to a group of alumnae and others. When this coalition raised only half of the required one million dollar bond, the court lifted the injunction and the college proceeded to sell Troubador at Christie's in April 2008. The other paintings are currently held in a Christie's warehouse, to be sold when markets rebound.
  By October 2008, museum directors could clearly see that the crisis would greatly affect the operation of their museums. After Lehman Brothers, a major corporate sponsor of the MOMA, filed for bankruptcy in September 2008, MOMA director Glenn D. Lowry was quoted as saying "We know there’s a storm at sea and we know it’s going to hit land and it could get ugly".
caption: George Wesley Bellows' Men of the Docks (1912, oil on canvas) is one of several paintings that Randolph College intends to auction
exif: {}