This is an update on how the Sackler name is being stripped from very many public institutions, art galleries and museums.
Two more art galleries have quietly removed the name - without announcement
- the Guggenheim in New York and
- the National Gallery in London
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| Photo: Wikimedia Commons courtesy Jean-Christophe BENOIST |
I've written before about how the Sackler name on buildings which house art
has become total anathema to very many people - both artists and art fans. For
an explanation as to why if you're totally unaware of the furore over and
fallout from the Opioid Crisis - see
- The Continuing Saga of Sackler Embarrassment for Art Galleries and Museums (2020)
- NEW Ethical slant on 2019 Power 100 "The most influential people in art" (December 2019
- The Politics of Sponsorship - a new reality for art galleries and museums (February 2019)
The removal of the Sackler Name
You and I used to see the Sackler name everywhere. It verged on ubiquitous if
the arts were involved.
Then artists started to get involved in highlighting why it was wrong. See An astounding list of artists helped persuade the Met to remove the Sackler name | New Yorker
Very slowly - starting with the Louvre back in 2019 - the name has come down from various instutions of the art world
One cannot help but think that lawyers have been poring over the legal bequest documentation and should by now have now come up with clauses about "doing nothing to bring the name of the institution into disrepute" i.e. if you're naughty, all bets are off and the name comes down - and we don't have to give the money back!
There again..... I wonder how many institutions are combing through their bequest records to identify how much they've received from the now disgraced Russian oligarchs?Art Galleries and Museums removing the Sackler Name
For the most part, those which had received significant funding leading to the naming of spaces waited until the legal situation was clear. Ties started to be cut in 2020 after the family company Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to criminal charges connected to marketing of addictive painkiller OxyContin.
Purdue Pharma reached an $8bn settlement and pleaded guilty to criminal charges in 2020 over its marketing of the painkiller, which played a key role in the emergence of the opioid epidemic. The Sackler family won immunity from further litigation in September this year and have given up control of the company.Museums Association
Here are the places that no longer boast a space or a building using the name "Sackler".
