Richard Calvocoressi on private funding of public museums

Richard Calvocoressi, director of the Henry Moore Foundation and a judge of the 2007 Gulbenkian Prize for museums and galleries, notes that "the days when gifts or bequests were put on permanent display in galleries named after the donor are largely a thing of the past. Museums claim they can't afford the space and are often embarrassed about being seen to glorify privilege and affluence. The public museum's ambivalence towards the private collector may account for the relatively new phenomenon, in Europe at least, of private museums founded by the collector: Ernst Beyeler in Basle, Charles Saatchi in London, Hans-Rasmus Astrup in Oslo. And yet private collectors are of crucial importance if the public museum is not to become moribund. This is especially the case today, when a single painting by Francis Bacon, Mark Rothko or Andy Warhol can cost 20 or 30 times the entire annual purchase grant of a major national collection."

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