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Behind Every Museum Gift Is a Negotiation Both Sides Are Trying to Win

Underlying these donations are complicated questions about legacy and long-term control.

The donation of artworks to a museum is often characterized as a gift to the general public, as it lets people see and learn about art that until recently was the off-limits personal property of a very wealthy person. It’s not untrue, precisely, but what said public seldom sees is the lengthy negotiations that go into such gifts. Some donations of artworks proceed relatively smoothly while others can be a titanic battle of egos between collector and institution, both of whom have considerable leverage. The collector is dangling a desirable work, the museum is holding out the imprimatur of an esteemed institution and things can get ugly.

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When he was director of Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum, Gary Vikan was approached by a collector of pre-Columbian art who was interested in donating approximately half of his collection to the institution. This was all well and good, except he wanted the gift to be transacted in a very particular way: he would arrange to have the Walters given $3 million, and the museum would use that money to purchase the pre-Columbian objects from him. “He chose the works he wanted us to buy from him, and he set the prices,” Vikan told Observer. “He wanted the museum to act as a pay-through, and I thought it was too manipulative. I thought the whole thing stunk.” Ultimately, the gift of artworks fell through, but the Walters Art Museum kept the money, using it to endow a curatorship.

The Boston MFA was more accommodating when, in 2005, it agreed to exhibit items from William Koch’s various holdings, including model ships, antique nautical instruments and paintings of ships and seascapes, as well as the yacht that won the 1992 America’s Cup race on the museum’s front lawn. The show—”Things I Love: The Many Collections of William I. Koch”—was criticized for aggrandizing the billionaire at the expense of the museum’s educational function, although Koch helped finance the show, including paying the cost to move the boat from Rhode Island. He also donated numerous artworks and millions of dollars in cash to the museum. “Whatever Koch wanted he got,” John Cahill, a New York lawyer who has helped negotiate many donation agreements between clients and institutions, told........

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