{"id":2058879,"date":"2026-07-22T18:55:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2058879"},"modified":"2026-07-22T18:55:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:55:53","slug":"if-dealers-want-to-sell-to-a-museum-they-may-have-to-find-the-buyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2058879","title":{"rendered":"If Dealers Want to Sell to a Museum, They May Have to Find the Buyer"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Rose-deSmith-Greenman-I-e1783367986575.jpeg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\tArt dealer Sonia Dutton was at her gallery on the Lower East Side last fall, where \u201cNight Drawing,\u201d Boston artist Rose deSmith Greenman\u2019s debut New York exhibition, was on view. The untrained artist began drawing only in her seventies, but her still lifes, often made after dark with humble materials like everyday markers and ballpoint pen, bristle with energy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn came a museum curator who expressed enthusiasm about the show, and even interest in acquiring a piece. But that news came with a pitch many dealers have come to expect, and not necessarily relish. It goes a little something like this, Dutton said: \u201cWe love the show. We love the work. We\u2019d love to have something for the museum\u2019s collection. But I\u2019m not sure we have the funds for it.\u201d In practice, that can translate to, \u201cWho can you find to buy it for us?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis presents a mixed prospect for the dealer: the chance to have an artwork enter a museum collection is a coup, but it is tempered by the fact that the dealer is, to some degree, pressed into service raising funds for the museum, which one might expect to be the job of the institution\u2019s board or development department.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe heartache of museum curators that stop short after a very long, engaged conversation about the work to ask whether a collector can be found to bankroll the acquisition is jarring,\u201d Dutton told ARTnews<\/em>. \u201cWhile museum curators understand the importance of the work being in their collections and may understand the value for dealers, artists, and estates, their enjoyment of a discovery, and an intellectual revelatory look at the artwork with them, is uprooted by this overlay. This has really affected the collecting habits, palpable aesthetic, and quality of works present in many museums across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA New York dealer with nearly four decades\u2019 experience, speaking anonymously to frankly discuss delicate arrangements, told me she has had the same experience. \u201cI have heard those words. It\u2019s not uncommon,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cThey\u2019re not my favorite words.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis kind of arrangement isn\u2019t new\u2014when ARTnews <\/em>broached the subject with New York\u2019s Michael Hort, who collects with his wife Susan, he was puzzled as to why there should even be a story about it. But Hort thinks it may be happening more often, for a simple reason. \u201cThere are a lot more museums now,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more artists and a lot more dealers, ten times [more than] when we first started.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHort said he fields calls from dealers proposing that he support museum acquisitions as often as once a month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s another obvious reason, too. \u201cMuseums just don\u2019t have any money,\u201d said one former New York gallery director, speaking anonymously. (In fact, those Greenman drawings at Dutton were priced at a maximum of just $17,000 and averaged about $4,000, which one might hope would not be a stretch for an institution.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe benefits of such deals are obvious: the donor gets a tax break; the artist can add another important line in their CV, and their work will presumably be well cared for; the gallery makes a sale; and the museum enriches its holdings.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis arrangement helps dealers on every level: we profit when we sell the work, plus the institution will be a good steward for the work and promote the artist\u2019s legacy,\u201d said the gallery director. \u201cThere\u2019s a reason the best work in a gallery show will be on reserve for a museum, maybe for as long as eight months: it\u2019s worth it, even if you give a 20 percent discount. You could sell it off the bat at full cost, but that\u2019s not as appealing for many reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Installation view, \u201cRose deSmith Greenman: Night Drawings,\u201d at Dutton, New York, 2025.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThen comes the hard part: delicate phone calls with collectors who believe in the artist\u2019s work, in which the dealer explains the possible acquisition and asks, \u201cWhat do you think about supporting this?\u201d That can mean a lot of conversations, even in the cases where the dealer is successful in her appeal. For an ambitious piece at a considerable price, there might even be a handful of people supporting the acquisition, each pitching in a percentage of the cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, the benefits are many, said the gallery director, but, she added, \u201cIt is a lot of work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe veteran dealer agreed with the gallery director, only more so. \u201cIt\u2019s really, really hard work for the dealers to cobble together money to get an acquisition for a museum,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe process isn\u2019t always smooth, either, she added: \u201cIt has tax implications. It\u2019s not so straightforward how the money gets paid and acknowledged.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s more, it\u2019s true that collectors who own works by a given artist may be motivated, even if only out of self-interest, to see the artist\u2019s work enter a museum\u2019s collection. But, said the veteran dealer, \u201cYou can\u2019t keep going to the same people again and again. It has to be super important.\u201d These conversations are taking place against a backdrop of great pressure on collectors, too, she added: \u201cCollectors are being inundated. So many nonprofits are asking people for money right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\tAn Increasing Enmeshment of Museums and the Market?\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tMuseums and the art market are enmeshed in many ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2015, I reported on how collectors wanting access to in-demand artists in a superhot market might have to buy two artworks by a coveted artist, promising to give one to a museum, meaning that museum acquisitions might be driven more by what is approved by the market than in an ideal world. Artnet News<\/em>\u2018s Katya Kazakina would revisit the subject in 2022 when it came under discussion at the New York Talking Galleries conference, referring to the practice as BOGO: \u201cbuy one, give one.\u201d Opinions on the arrangement differ: adviser Benjamin Godsill called it a win-win, while Lisson Gallery\u2019s Alex Logsdail called it \u201cvery, very problematic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat same year, the Art Newspaper<\/em> determined that nearly a third of the major solo exhibitions mounted in US museums between 2007 and 2013 featured artists represented by just five galleries\u2014Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Marian Goodman Gallery, Pace, and David Zwirner\u2014raising questions about, among other issues, the outsize influence of just a few companies. What\u2019s more, art dealers often support institutional exhibitions of their artists in an arrangement that benefits everyone\u2014not least the collectors who have amassed holdings of the artist\u2019s works from the gallery and may now see their value rise as the artist receives the imprimatur of an institution. That arrangement also raises questions about what factors are really driving museum programming.<\/p>\n

\n\tDealers finding clients to support acquisitions represent just one more way that the commercial and institutional worlds are intertwined.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne concern is that the practice tends to prioritize acquisitions of artists supported by galleries that are already connected with museums and who have the kinds of collectors who understand the importance of donating to them. \u201cI don\u2019t think that all galleries are set up to make those efforts,\u201d said the New York gallery director, adding that it leads to a degree of homogeneity between what\u2019s on view at galleries and institutions. \u201cSo,\u201d she said, \u201cmuseums are boring for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNew York adviser Lara Bj\u00f6rk, based on her experience facilitating gifts to museums from her clients, sees this arrangement as far superior to a BOGO, in which market forces seem to drive museum donations, rather than being directed by curators\u2019 efforts. In any event, those BOGO arrangements, she added, aren\u2019t even necessarily legally binding, so a planned gift might not ever arrive at the museum. \u201cI think it\u2019s a great thing,\u201d said Bj\u00f6rk. \u201cIt\u2019s cleaner than a BOGO and feels more direct and intentional.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNew York attorney Judd Grossman is in the same camp. \u201cThe symbiotic relationship among advisers, dealers, galleries, collectors, and museums is a wonderful thing!\u201d he said in an e-mail to ARTnews<\/em>, explaining that the artist\u2019s legacy benefits; the gallery\u2019s reputation improves; and the collector may get access to works that otherwise would not be available to them. \u201cWhen done properly,\u201d he said, \u201ceveryone\u2014including, but perhaps especially the artist\u2014wins.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut one museum expert has his reservations.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s good when museums are the beneficiary of generosity, but at the same time, museums are already quite enmeshed in the marketplace, and there are risks to increasing that enmeshment,\u201d said Stephen Reily, founding director of think tank Remuseum.<\/p>\n

\n\tA 2013 article in the Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts<\/em> pointed out that \u201cmore than ninety percent of the art on display in museums in the United States was acquired through private donations.\u201d From that we can extrapolate, Reily pointed out, that \u201cmuseum acquisition budgets are a very small part of the growth of museums\u2019 collecting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy can\u2019t museums raise the money to make all their acquisitions themselves, Reily asks? \u201cThey\u2019re trying to raise money for operating dollars,\u201d he said, including, ironically, funds required in storing and caring for museums\u2019 rapidly growing collections. If gifts are responsible for the growth in museums\u2019 holdings, he notes, ideally they would be gifts from donors with a longstanding connection to the museum (and perhaps even donors who give financially to support the care of the works they give).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBy contrast, look at the way that museum collections traditionally grew, through gifts of collectors who had lifelong connections of generosity to the institution,\u201d said Reily. \u201cThe collector may have had curatorial input from the museum, and those collectors felt connected to the long-term vitality of the museum.\u201d Under the newer arrangement, he says, \u201can unknown donor may get a tax break when a work of art goes to a museum to which they have no connection.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/market\/dealers-sell-museum-find-buyer-themselves-1234789322\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Rose-deSmith-Greenman-I-e1783367986575.jpeg?w=1024″] Art dealer Sonia Dutton was at her gallery on the Lower East Side last fall, where \u201cNight Drawing,\u201d Boston artist Rose deSmith Greenman\u2019s debut New York exhibition, was on view. The untrained artist began drawing only in her seventies, but her still lifes, often made after dark with humble materials like everyday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2058879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2058879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2058879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2058879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2058879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}