Friday, July 20, 2012

Only Wrong When Brandeis Does It (a continuing series)

Carol Vogel reports in today's Times that the Prado is lending a "major" collection of about 100 paintings from its permanent collection to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Queensland Art Gallery in Australia ... and "charging the museums an undisclosed fee."  As she says:

"Over the years institutions have raised considerable cash from showing rare pieces from their collections. The Museum of Modern Art, for instance, is said to have received $5 million for sending 200 masterpieces to the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin in 2004."

This common practice is apparently okay for everyone except the Rose Art Museum.  The latest reports, by the way, are that the Rose has given up on its evil plan to do what MoMA and the Prado (and others) have done, so we can all sleep soundly at night.