Sackler donations spurned
Guggenheim and Tate reject Purdue Pharma owners’ philanthropy; Met evaluates
STAMFORD — A British philanthropic arm of the family who owns OxyContin producer Purdue Pharma has reportedly suspended donations, following the decisions of three major art institutions — including New York’s Guggenheim museum — to spurn new contributions from the Sacklers.
The Sackler Trust said in a statement that it had made the “difficult decision to temporarily pause all new philanthropic giving, while still honoring existing commitments,” BBC News reported Monday. The move follows announcements last week that Britain’s Tate group of galleries would not take more money from the Sacklers and that the London-based National Portrait Gallery, in consultation with the trust, would not proceed with a $1.3 million donation.
The trust has committed approximately $80 million since 2010, according to the BBC.
Nonprofits in the U.S., U.K., and other countries that have received donations from the Sacklers — one of the most-prolific philanthropic families in the U.S., with an estimated net worth of $13 billion — face growing pressure to cut ties with the family. Lawsuits filed by Connecticut, Massachusetts and other parties allege that the family members who control Purdue have fueled the U.S. opioid crisis through deceptive marketing of pain drugs such as OxyContin.
On Friday, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan said that it would not accept additional contributions from the family of Mortimer D. Sackler, a former museum board member and one of the eight Sackler defendants in the Connecticut and Massachusetts lawsuits.
“In the present circumstances, we do not think it right to seek or accept further donations from the Sacklers,” said the statement, which did not reference the opioid crisis.
Between 1995 and 2015, Sackler members donated $9 million to the Guggenheim, according to the statement. The total included $7 million for a Sackler Center for Arts Education, whose name would not change because of contractual commitments. The museum has not received contributions from the Sacklers since 2015.
On Monday, the neighboring Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has a Sackler Wing that houses the Temple of Dendur from ancient Egypt, said that it was still reviewing its gift-acceptance policy. It launched the re-evaluation earlier this year, following protests there and at other Sackler-supported museums.
The Met’s statement did not indicate that it was renouncing future Sackler donations, but it said that “the issue of Sackler funding reflects a complexity that is common in this area.”
Sackler support of The Met began more than 50 years ago — some 30 years before OxyContin went on the market. The Met said it had not received any donations from the Sacklers in the past two years.
“All of this demonstrates the need for the museum’s leadership team to be highly deliberative,” the statement said. “We will continue our review of the museum’s gift acceptance policies, will adjust wherever necessary, and will be transparent in our process and conclusions.”
Connecticut-based beneficiaries include the University of Connecticut, Yale University and Greenwich Hospital. So far, those organizations have not severed their relationships with the Sacklers.
“Returning the money to the Sacklers would not undo the damage of the opioid crisis or punish the family or the company they are associated with,” a UConn spokeswoman said earlier this year. “Rather, it would hamper the work of UConn students and researchers who have no connection to the issues at hand and have done nothing wrong.”