Bank of America giving $10m to MFA
Firm now museum?s top corporate donor
Bank of America will announce today a $10 million gift to the Museum of Fine Arts, a contribution split evenly between cash and art, with the centerpiece being a prized painting by contemporary artist Ellsworth Kelly. Coming after a $5 million contribution to the MFA?s capital campaign, the gift makes Bank of America the museum?s largest corporate donor, a status formerly held by State Street Corp.
The news highlights a remarkable trend for the MFA, as donations continue to flow after the museum?s successful $504 million expansion campaign, which was completed two years ago and set a record for cultural fund-raising in Boston.
In recognition of the latest gift, the MFA?s Huntington Avenue entrance plaza will be called the ?Bank of America Plaza on the Avenue of the Arts?? ? a name chiseled into granite plinths that will be unveiled today by MFA director Malcolm Rogers and Anne Finucane, Bank of America?s global strategy and marketing officer.
Robert Gallery, Massachusetts president of Bank of America, said the gift aligned with the bank?s efforts to make the museum more accessible, highlighted in the past by sponsorships of free admission programs for its account holders. The bank also contributed funds for a recent renovation of the Huntington Avenue entrance.
Gallery recalled bringing his family to the MFA, ?the first museum they ever went to, and standing under a statue on Huntington Avenue.??
?So for the museum to choose to recognize us there, we?re quite honored. To me, it symbolizes opening those doors for the community at large,?? he said.
In 2007, State Street Corp. announced a $10 million gift to the MFA, at the time the largest single contribution by a corporation in the museum?s history. In return, the MFA?s Fenway entrance was named after the bank. Citizens Bank, Liberty Mutual, and Merrill Lynch also gave $1 million or more to the campaign.
The Kelly painting, ?Blue Green Yellow Orange Red,?? is a 22-foot-long, five-panel piece created in 1968. Jen Mergel, senior curator of contemporary art at the MFA, said it will fill a hole in the museum?s collection.
?This is from the moment where he was really making a statement,?? Mergel said of Kelly, who graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. ?It?s an absolutely monumental and signature image.??
Meanwhile, as installation work continues inside the new Art of the Americas Wing, a 133,491-square-foot expansion that adds 28 percent more space to the institution and will open in November, other philanthropists have continued to give.
In fiscal 2010, which stretched from July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010, the MFA received $57 million in funds and art. Since July, the MFA has received additional donations totaling more than $33.6 million, including a group of seven-figure gifts.Continued...
Simone Hartman, who is on the MFA?s board of overseers, and her husband, Alan, funded the reinstallation of several European galleries, which will be named after them. Lizbeth and George Krupp gave to support the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, which will house the Kelly painting.
The Lunder Foundation ? led by Peter Lunder, the former Dexter Shoe Co. president, and his wife, Paula ? gave to support the Museum?s University Membership program for students attending Maine colleges and universities, as well as internships for Maine students.
MFA trustee Frederic Sharf and his wife, Jean, pledged $2 million to endow a post for a curator of design.
Leonard Lauder, the cosmetics company magnate who has given more than $130 million to the Whitney Museum of American Art, has given the MFA $2 million to endow a curatorial position. He also promised his collection of about 100,000 rare postcards. An earlier donation of thousands of his Japanese postcards led to an acclaimed 2004 show at the MFA.
Lauder, in a statement, said that he was pleased to have a permanent home for his collection and that the MFA ?and their incomparable curatorial team rightly value these postcards as more than ephemera. We share an appreciation of postcards as individual art and design objects that vividly capture the modern era.??
Rogers said he wasn?t surprised that people continue to give to the museum, even after the completion of the campaign.
?People like to invest in success,?? said Rogers. ?I think people do make the mistake of thinking that the MFA is an institution that has so much money it doesn?t know what to do with it. The opposite is the case. We are a large institution with many, many programs and a large staff, and we always need resources to serve our community better.??
The gift of the Kelly painting is meant to be just the start of a more ambitious plan to tap into Bank of America?s vast art collection. Mergers and acquisitions of other banks have meant that many artworks, once on display, have been put in storage and kept out of the public eye.
?Blue Green Yellow Orange Red,?? for example, was purchased from a New York gallery in 1997 by NationsBank. The following year, BankAmerica Corp. acquired NationsBank. The painting was last on display in 2002, when it was loaned for an exhibition at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis.
Bank of America?s gift of $5 million in art will include other works to be selected. The bank will also collaborate with the MFA on a show of contemporary photographs planned for next year, said Gallery, and may loan works to the museum.
Geoff Edgers can be reached at
gedgers@globe.com
? Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
