Art
Museums Sell Picasso and Warhol, Embrace Diversity to Survive
- Covid and diversity demands are suspending long traditions
- Black and Latino painters are being acquired, shifting canon
The one-two punch of Covid-19 and the racial-justice movement has upended huge swathes of society -- work, school and health care. Below the radar, it’s also shaking the foundations of another set of U.S. institutions -- museums -- forcing them to sell prized works and broaden the definition of great art.
For generations, museums lived by a tightly scripted set of rules. They accepted tax-deductible donations and acquired artists seen as great -- mostly European and American, mostly white, mostly men. In deference to the sacredness of their task, they were permitted to sell a work only to buy another, not to keep on the lights or pay conservators.