Donating to Foreign Museums for U.S. Tax Deductions

In the April issue of the Art Newspaper, Brook Mason reports on Guggenheim director Lisa Dennison's recent public plaint about the proliferation of "friends" groups, consisting of American benefactors providing financial support for foreign museums.

What neither has mentioned is the aspect of these groups that most troubles me: their use of the U.S. tax code to encourage donations to foreign museums that might otherwise have enriched U.S. institutions.

Mason goes farther than CultureGrrl, in extensively quoting the testy exchange (during the question period following an Art Dealers Association of America-sponsored panel discussion) between Dennison and Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate Gallery.

As Dennison pointed out (and Mason has now fleshed out), American Patrons of the Tate breaks new ground in donor perks by offering group portraits by Annie Leibovitz at its New York gala dinner on May 8, not to mention a reception June 16 with Tony and Cherie Blair at the British Prime Minister's residence in London.

What bothers Dennison is that those foreign "friends" groups are siphoning off donor dollars that might have gone to American museums. What bothers CultureGrrl is that American donors are getting U.S. tax deductions for their largesse to foreign institutions: The "friends" groups are established as 501(c) (3) U.S. charities, giving them full tax-exempt status, which allows donors to get the same financial benefits that they would in donating to U.S. institutions.

According to the 2005 annual report of American Patrons of the Tate, total donations that year were $3,990,225, including $2,192,665 for the capital campaign. The report lists and illustrates 20 art acquisitions purchased using American Patrons' funds or donated to the Tate by American patrons. Artists range from Thomas Lawrence to Elizabeth Peyton.

Mason provides details about seven other foreign museum "friends" groups: Royal Academy; National Gallery, London; British Museum; Pompidou Center; Shanghai Museum; Louvre; Israel Museum. But she reports that "the Hermitage was unwilling to provide information about its U.S. fundraising."

Maybe it should have directed Brook to the Hermitage Museum Foundation's website.

April 5, 2007 12:00 PM | | Comments (0)

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Me Elsewhere

Highlights from my writings and broadcasts: 


MY BOOK
The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf)

IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
NY TIMES OP-EDS:
For Sale: Our Permanent Collection (museum deaccessions)
Fashion Victim (Chanel at the Met)
Destroying the Museum to Save It (Barnes Foundation)
Reassembling Sundered Antiquities (Parthenon marbles)

WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Los Angeles' New Broad Museum of Contemporary Art
Philadelphia's New Perelman Building
The Walton Effect: Art World Is Roiled by Wal-Mart Heiress

Tricks of the Auction Trade

The Seattle Art Museum: A Work in Progress

Upside Down and Backward, Yet Tame (Boston ICA)
Edith Wharton's Library Is Now an Open Book
Extreme Makeover: Smithsonian Edition (American Art and Portrait Gallery renovation)
This Museum's Expansion is Simply Effective (Minneapolis Institute)
Truth in Booty: Coming--and Staying--Clean (antiquities controversies)
A Betrayal of Trust (NY Public Library's art sales)
The Lost Museum (MoMA's art sales)
Endangered Species (single-collector jewel-box museums)
Money in Motion (the Guggenheim's finances)
The Fine Art of Genocide? (appraisals of Hitler's art)

LA TIMES OP-EDS:
Make Art Loans, Not War
Museums Can't Compete (public collecting endangered)

ART IN AMERICA:
Refreshing the Smithsonian (the renovated SAAM and NPG)
The Atrium That Ate the Morgan (Renzo Piano's addition)
Hot Pots and Potshots (controversies over museum antiquities)
Musings on Museums (book review of "Whose Muse?")

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO:
Criticism of AAM's Cultural Diplomacy Initiative

NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO:
Guggenheim Director Steps Down
Philippe de Montebello's Retirement
Fall '07 Art Auctions
Metropolitan Museum's "Age of Rembrandt" Show
Commentary on the Art Market
Tour of Sculpture Gardens, with Slideshow
Audio Commentary on the Met's New Greek and Roman Galleries
Glenn Lowry's Unorthodox Compensation Package
Commentary on the Art Market

PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC RADIO:
Museums' Purchase and Sale of Eakins' Works (about one-third of the way into the program)
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' sale of Eakins' "The Cello Player"

BBC-TV:
Impressionist/Modern Auction at Sotheby's

more of me elsewhere

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by CultureGrrl published on April 5, 2007 12:00 PM.

"Umbrian Umbrage": Chariot Contest Makes a Belated NY Times Debut was the previous entry in this blog.

Kimbell to Build Long-Awaited Annex, Designed by Piano is the next entry in this blog.

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