How to Say 'No Thanks' to Donors

Art-museum officials love to talk of the important works they are given by donors—the Mary Cassatt painting, the Alexander Calder mobile, the collection of Edward Weston photographs—and that talk (they well know) encourages similar donations. Cultivating gifts is a large part of being a museum curator or director. But not all donations are equally welcome, and another part of the job is figuring out how to say "no, thank you."

Most museums acquire 90% or more of their collections as donations, but they don't want everything: The artwork may not fit the museum's mission, or be duplicative of another already in the collection, or be in poor condition, of poor quality, or not what the owner thinks it is. Perhaps the museum is unwilling to accept the strings attached to the gift—that it must always be on view, for instance—or it has a murky past. "It may be a very wonderful piece that someone is offering us," said Griffith Mann, chief curator at the Cleveland Museum of Art, "but, if it is an antiquity and there are any provenance concerns, we tend to back away from it." In the past year, his museum has returned to Italy 13 works whose history of ownership has been in question.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond turns down about a third of the gifts it is offered, according to John Ravenal, curator of modern and contemporary art. At times, the museum is offered pieces by an art gallery that would like one of its artists represented in a public collection; individual artists themselves offer pieces for the same reason. Local collectors may look to donate artwork because they need a tax deduction or "think this is a way to support an institution they care about," or they may gain "satisfaction from getting a work from their collection into the museum. It validates their taste," he said.

The Houston Museum of Fine Arts accepts only "one out of every 10 objects offered," said its director, Peter Marzio. "It's easy to let your standards drop." Sometimes, gifts are accepted but placed in a sort of limbo, he noted, as with "large collections where there may only be one or two items we really would want, but you may have to take the whole collection to get them." (The unwanted works tend to get sold eventually.) At other times, a gift that the museum doesn't want at all may be accepted "as a commodity," specifically designated for sale after a three-year period (to qualify as a tax-deductible donation by the Internal Revenue Service). A "commodity," he stated, is an "in-house term" for an object that is not registered as a piece of art ("like office furniture") but segregated in its own storage area awaiting an opportunity to be sold. These sales "raise a modest amount of money" for the institution.

At the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Conn., storage space is a central concern, Patricia Hickson, curator of contemporary art, noted. "This is an 1848 building whose last reconstruction was in 1962, and we just don't have room for many pieces that aren't likely to be put out on the floor."

Some gifts are easier to reject than others. Kaywin Feldman, director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, noted that when she had been the director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Tennessee, "someone wanted to donate to us the defibrillator allegedly used on Elvis when he was dying." That was turned down "for the obvious reasons." Other times, she says, prospective donors bring in museum posters that they believe are original works of art (a magnifying glass reveals the printer's dot matrix pattern, and she also points out the copyright notice).

Responding to inquiries for donations requires considerable tact, if for no other reason than a collector offering one unwanted object may have one or more others in which the museum would be far more interested. "Rejection can result in hurt feelings," Ms. Feldman said, "especially when the collector has great love and affection for the object" that is being offered. "We do our best to explain what our decision is based on, and we try not to say 'no' right away."

Saying "no" the wrong way can get you in trouble. In the mid-1970s, a Florida resident contacted a curator at the Cleveland Museum of Art, offering to sell a purported Rembrandt. The curator, who knew the picture wasn't by that artist, gently declined the opportunity to buy "the painting by Rembrandt." The curator was unaware that the work's owner would use her words to proclaim that the painting must be authentic. For years, she found herself explaining to one Rembrandt expert or another what she had meant. The same is true with gifts. Mr. Ravenal noted the importance of not being "sloppy when you say 'no.' Not being negative is seen as being positive."

Hurt feelings cannot be avoided. Graham Beal, director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, recalled that when he was chief curator of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, "a woman brought me a mirror she had found in the woods. The mirror had been shattered by the cold, and she thought that the way it was shattered was extraordinarily beautiful, and she wanted us to have it. I had to explain to her, and she was very embarrassed to be told this, that the point of an art museum is that everything here is made by hand."

Museum officials attempt to learn something about the person making the offer, because they don't want to close the door on a relationship that might yield other benefits. They also may schedule a visit to the collector's home to examine the proposed gift and whatever else of value might be around. That, at least, is the hope, though there aren't too many examples of such a fortuitous turn of events ever happening. "Most people who have important things that we might want do offer serious material from the very beginning," Mr. Beal said.

Saying "no" to a would-be donor is a "delicate dance," according to Maxwell Anderson, director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, who tries to soften the blow. "It's not a point-blank 'no.' I will delicately hint that this object isn't the road we want to go down or that it wouldn't be a good fit with the museum. If the person needs more explanation, I might say that the work wouldn't ever be published or exhibited. If they get emphatic about it, I will say 'no.'" At times, these prospective donors have gotten angry with him. "I've heard a few people say, 'I know of plenty of other museums I can give this to.' When I haven't seen that work pop up at any other museum, I know they didn't have any better luck elsewhere."

Mr. Grant is the author of "The Business of Being an Artist" (Allworth).