London gallery forgos donation from Purdue’s Sackler family
Suits alleging role in opioid crisis have spurred some to rethink philanthropic relations
Britain’s National Portrait Gallery won’t proceed with a £1 million ($1.3 million) pledge from a charitable organization overseen by some members of the Sackler family, the latest crack in a philanthropic image cultivated by the owners of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP that is facing increasing scrutiny over the company’s role in the U.S.’s opioid crisis.
The London gallery had been reviewing the pledge, which was originally granted in 2016, as part of its standard process, a spokeswoman said. On Tuesday, the gallery, home to one of the largest collections of portraits in the world, and the trust said in a statement that the funding wouldn’t go forward. It had been intended for the Inspiring People project, the largest fundraising and development effort since the gallery’s building opened in 1896.
“It has become evident that recent reporting of allegations made against Sackler family members may cause this new donation to deflect the National Portrait Gallery from its important work. The allegations against family members are vigorously denied, but to avoid being a distraction for the NPG, we have decided not to proceed at this time with the donation,” a representative for the trust said in a statement on the gallery’s website.
The decision is the latest change in the relationship between prominent institutions and members of the Sackler family. Last month, Columbia University, where the Sacklers’ funding has included a profes- sorship, awards and an institute in its psychiatry department, said it isn’t currently accepting donations from Sackler-related entities, The Wall Street Journal reported. Tufts University in Massachusetts and New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art have also said they are reviewing their policies in the wake of the lawsuits.
Purdue and other drugmakers are facing lawsuits from more than 35 states in the U.S. and some 1,600 cities and counties for their alleged role in the opioid crisis. A document in a suit from the Massachusetts attorney general against Purdue, eight Sackler family members and other board members and executives unsealed in January cited scores of emails and other internal communications that suggested family members had a heavy hand in marketing and operating the Stamford, Conn., company.
Purdue has denied the allegations in the Massachusetts case.
Nan Goldin, a photographer and activist who has helped lead protests at museums that have benefited from Sackler donations, had threatened to boycott the National Portrait Gallery if it accepted funds from the trust, the Guardian recently reported.
The Sackler family has rarely spoken publicly about OxyContin and the wider opioid crisis, while cultivating over decades an image as global benefactors of the arts and sciences. Today the Sackler name is attached to professorships, awards, museum galleries and buildings.
The London-based Sackler trust is among the family’s charitable organizations and has donated millions of pounds to various organizations and causes, according to the documents filed with the U.K. Charity Commission.
Three Sackler brothers—Raymond, Arthur and Mortimer— helped build Purdue into a powerful drug company after buying its predecessor in 1952. OxyContin, approved by U.S. regulators in 1995, became the company’s breakthrough product and remains its biggest-selling drug. The three brothers have died, but the company is still entirely owned by Sackler members through family-controlled trusts. Some family members have said their donations aren’t from funds related to OxyContin sales or distribution. The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., opened in 1987, the same year Arthur Sackler died. None of his donations made before his death, or subsequently in his name by his widow, Dame Jillian Sackler, or their heirs, came from sales of OxyContin, according to a spokeswoman for Mrs. Sackler. Arthur Sackler’s heirs haven’t been named in any opioid litigation. David Ross, chairman of the National Portrait Gallery, said in a statement: “I acknowledge the generosity of the Sackler Family and their support of the Arts over the years. We understand and support their decision not to proceed at this time with the donation to the Gallery.”