Managing Collections from the Grave

The Charity Governance website has an interesting article about donor restrictions that will make your head spin.

In the 1940s, Georgia O'Keefe donated an art collection to Fisk University with a number of restrictions--including one stating that the collection could never be sold. Flash forward a few decades to a financially troubled university interested in selling a couple of O'Keefes to raise some money. While the Attorney General of Tennessee initially approved the sale, the Georgia O'Keefe Foundation stepped in to represent O'Keefe's interests to stop any potential sales. The resulting tangle of arguments serves as a valuable lesson to museums when considering accepting donations with restrictions. Other museums have gone through the same ordeal when faced with major collection management decisions. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, has also recieved quite a bit of attention over this issue recently, and don't forget the infamous battle over the Barnes collection. For those of you not familiar with this particular museum case study--the story can be read here and here. The issue at the Barnes Foundation helped establish significant case precident regarding donor restrictions.