Displaying items by tag: board member

Maurice Sendak was the author of the beloved children's books "Where the Wild Things Are," "In the Night Kitchen," "Chicken Soup with Rice" and many more. The author and illustrator, who could be delightfully gruff (see his not-safe-for-work interview with Stephen Colbert), passed away in 2012 at age 84.

In his will, he directed his rare book collection and items of his personal work be gifted to the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, and they haven't been, according to a lawsuit filed by the museum last week.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Sendak's relationship with the museum dates to the 1960s, when he began placing his work there on deposit. He was at times a board member and its honorary president. The museum presented dozens of shows of his work.

Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum will receive a $2-million gift from the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation, which will be used to fund educational programs for families and children. Anthony Pritzker, a museum board member, will make the cash donation over a period of time.

Ann Philbin, director of the Hammer Museum, said, “This gift is a tremendously thoughtful investment in building and nurturing the next generation of arts audiences, advocates, and creative minds, which are essential to our community.” The Pritzker gift will allow the Hammer to expand its high school outreach program as well as its Family Day and Classroom-in-Residence initiatives, among other endeavors.

The Pritzkers’ donation is the largest to date in support of the museum’s educational programming.

The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is ramping up endowment efforts after a wave of financial and administrative troubles left the institution’s future murky. Museum officials announced on Tuesday, March 26, 2013 that the amount of promised donations would raise MOCA’s endowment to $60 million, the highest in the institution’s 34-year history.        

Jeffrey Soros, the president of MOCA’s board, and trustee Eugenio Lopez, a prominent art collector, are helming the new fundraising campaign known as MOCA Independence. The goal of the campaign is to raise $100 million, which will allow the museum to continue operating as an independent institution devoted to contemporary art.  

MOCA’s troubles began in 2008 when overspending and dwindling investments left the museum with an endowment of a few million dollars. Eli Broad, a billionaire art collector and one of MOCA’s founding board members, gave the museum a second chance when he donated $15 million to the institution; Broad also pledged $15 million to match outsider contributions. While Broad’s generosity helped keep the museum afloat, MOCA struggled to find donors that would match his pledge.

MOCA’s troubles prompted partnership offers from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The museum declined both offers in favor of maintaining its independence.

When the influential American painter Cy Twombly (1928-2011) passed away two years ago, he left the bulk of his artwork and millions of dollars in cash to the Cy Twombly Foundation of New York. The wealth of money and art passed from a trust to the foundation, which is devoted to protecting and promoting Twombly’s legacy. The Cy Twombly Foundation now finds itself embroiled in a lawsuit that was filed on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 in a Delaware state court.

The lawsuit claims that Thomas H. Saliba, one of the four individuals in charge of the foundation, took over $300,000 in unauthorized fees for investment services and assisted another foundation director, attorney Ralph E. Lerner, in pocketing funds. The claim was filed by Nicola Del Roscia, Twombly’s companion and the foundation’s president, and Julie Sylvester, a curator, Twombly expert, and the foundation’s vice president. Roscia and Sylvester also assert that Lerner and Saliba inflated the value of Twombly’s works in order to pad commissions for their own financial gain. Lerner and Saliba have refused to disclose their trustee commissions, making it impossible to determine the extent of their wrongdoing.

The recent lawsuit comes a month after Lerner asked the same Delaware court to appoint Twombly’s son, Alessandro, as a fifth board member in order to break the stalemate over the dispute. Roscia and Sylvester stated in recent court filings that Lerner’s request was an attempt to outmaneuver them. Roscia and Sylvester claim that Lerner hoped to bring Alessandro, the third trustee of Twombly’s trust, on board to help cover up Saliba’s wrongdoing.

While Twombly is a powerful force in the art market, highly inflating the prices of his work could prove dangerous for the foundation by creating confusion about the true value of his art and in turn destabilizing the Twombly market.