• Home
  • About
    • About this Blog
    • About Andrew Taylor
    • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Other AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

The Artful Manager

Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture

When good donors go bad

May 31, 2005 by Andrew Taylor

Lots of news sources are following the second fall from grace of mega-patron Alberto Vilar, who was arrested at the airport last Thursday for fraud. Said the New York Times:


But it all came crashing down Thursday. That night, Mr. Vilar, 64, flew to Newark Liberty International Airport from Las Vegas, where he spoke at an investor conference. At the airport, federal agents arrested him on fraud charges, accusing him of stealing $5 million from a client — and using the money to make good on charitable pledges. As he was led away in handcuffs, there was no doubt that the Vilar bubble had burst once more — perhaps irreparably.

The first fall for Vilar had come several years ago, when he reneged on several of his multi-million dollar arts pledges, following the collapse of his primary technology fund. At a federal hearing on Friday, the prosecuter suggested that the $5 million fraud was just the tip of the iceburg.

Other coverage of the arrest and the financial troubles comes from CNN and Bloomberg, which offers a glimpse of the complaint:


Vilar used the unidentified client’s investment in 2002 “as a personal piggy bank to pay personal expenses and make charitable contributions, without the knowledge, consent, or authorization of the victim,” U.S. Postal Inspector Cynthia Fraterrigo said in a complaint prosecutors unsealed yesterday.

It will be interesting to watch how arts organizations, who have named buildings, programs, and initiatives after the donor, respond to the allegations (for example, the Vilar Grand Tier at the Metropolitan Opera, the Vilar young artists program at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, the Vilar Center for the Arts in Avon, Colorado, and the Vilar Institute for Arts Management at the Kennedy Center).

Filed Under: main

About Andrew Taylor

Andrew Taylor is a faculty member in American University's Arts Management Program in Washington, DC. [Read More …]

ArtsManaged Field Notes

#ArtsManaged logoAndrew Taylor also publishes a weekly email newsletter, ArtsManaged Field Notes, on Arts Management practice. The most recent notes are listed below.

RSS ArtsManaged Field Notes

  • Links to Arts Management learning July 22, 2025
    While I'm on a two-week pause, wander these other paths to inform your craft.
  • Arts management as practice July 15, 2025
    Management isn't a theory, it's an evolving repertory of embodied expertise.
  • The bother of bylaws July 8, 2025
    Does your arts nonprofit's map for action match the terrain?
  • Minimum viable everything July 1, 2025
    Getting better as an arts organization doesn't always (or even often) mean getting bigger.
  • The rise and stall of the nonprofit arts June 24, 2025
    The modern arts nonprofit evolved in an ecology of growth. It's time to evolve again.

Artful Manager: The Book!

The Artful Manager BookFifty provocations, inquiries, and insights on the business of arts and culture, available in
paperback, Kindle, or Apple Books formats.

Recent Comments

  • Barry Hessenius on Business in service of beauty: “An enormous loss. Diane changed the discourse on culture – its aspirations, its modus operandi, its assumptions. A brilliant thought…” Jan 19, 18:58
  • Sunil Iyengar on Business in service of beauty: “Thank you, Andrew. The loss is immense. Back when Diane was teaching a course called “Approaching Beauty,” to business majors…” Jan 16, 18:36
  • Michael J Rushton on Business in service of beauty: “A wonderful person and a creative thinker, this is a terrible loss. – thank you for posting this.” Jan 16, 13:18
  • Andrew Taylor on Two goals to rule them all: “Absolutely, borrow and build to your heart’s content! The idea that cultural practice BOTH reduces and samples surprise is really…” Jun 2, 18:01
  • Heather Good on Two goals to rule them all: “To “actively sample novel experiences (in safe ways) to build more resilient perception and prediction” is about as useful a…” Jun 2, 15:05

Archives

Creative Commons License
The written content of this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images are not covered under this license, but are linked (whenever possible) to their original author.

an ArtsJournal blog

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in