Life at the philanthropic pinnacle

A seat on the board of NY's Metropolitan Museum of Art is considered the pinnacle of board memberships. 

I know enough about boards to know that members are  expected to financially support the organization. For the Met, financial support includes an upfront donation that's pretty steep: $10M. At minimum. Then there's the expectation of ongoing support.

Most nonprofits are not, of course, the Met. You don't have to pony up a min of $10M to get a seat on the board, that's for sure. But the Met's the Met. Most nonprofits don't have fundraising galas that cost $50K a head. Most don't make headline news based on the outrageous outfits that attendees wear.

No, the Met is pretty much sui generis. Which makes sense, since there can be only one pinnacle, no?

Shelby White and her late husband Leon Levy are/were big deal philanthropists. They are/were ultrawealthy, philanthropically minded, and lived in NYC. So of course they were interested in the Met. But the White and Levy are/were art collectors, so the Met made a lot of sense.

After the couple's $20M donation to the museum, Shelby White joined the board and became a member of "the committee that advises the museum on what pieces to acquire." So, Shelby White knew her stuff.

White and Levy collected antiquities - ancient Greek vases, Roman bronzes, Chinese funerary objects - and many of the antiquities they collected made their way into the Met, as gifts or on loan. 

Antiquities are tricky business. 

Increasingly, they're found to be treasures that were looted from their native lands. 

One of the most prominent examples are the Elgin Marbles, taken from Greece in the early 19th century and exhibited at the British Museum since. Fast forward, and it seems that an agreement is nearing on when the Elgin Marbles - now called the Parthenon Marbles - will be repatriated to Greece.

Back to the White/Levy antiquities collection:

... recently the couple’s conduct as collectors has drawn heightened scrutiny. Investigators from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office have carted away 71 looted artifacts from White’s home in the past two years, though they have not suggested that she or her husband knowingly bought stolen antiquities.

In fact, investigators would later thank White, 84, for her cooperation, as artifacts were returned to multiple countries, including Yemen, Turkey and Italy. But in June 2021 they showed up, unannounced, with a search warrant at her spacious Sutton Place apartment in Manhattan at 6 a.m. The rooms inside were filled with antiquities, some of which had been purchased from dealers who would later be accused of trafficking in illicit artifacts. Many were displayed in their own nooks or cabinets, and set off by lighting that enhanced their appeal. (Source: NY Times)

Rooms filled with price-is-no-object objects at a splosh Sutton Place address? Sounds ab-fab to me. It really does pay to be a billionaire.  

Meanwhile, over at the Met, "investigators seized another 17 antiquities on loan from White, asserting that they, too, had been stolen."

On the one hand, White's generosity to the Met has been spectacular. 

On the other hand, people are asking, how is it that such a knowledgeable, sophisticated collector, with considerable expertise in her field, didn't know that much of the White/Levy collection was looted. The couple's attorney released a statement saying that, as they built their collection, White and Levy purchased “in good faith, at public auction and from dealers they believed to be reputable," and that, whenever they found that they had a looted item in their collection, they voluntarily returned it. 

Still, there are some raised eyebrows. 

“There is no way,” said Elizabeth Marlowe, the director of the museum studies program at Colgate University, “that someone at her level of the market and her depth of collecting and her prominence at the Met, there is no way someone at that level did not know they should be asking for things like export licenses.”

Critics also say that, even if they purchased items in good faith, once the word got out that some of the dealers they worked with were on the shady side of the provenance continuum, White and Levy should have gone through their entire collection, rather than wait for the authorities to show up at Sutton Place at 6 a.m.  

Even in acknowledging the good White has done in terms of preserving antiquities and raising awareness of their importance and beauty, some are questioning whether the good outweighs the bad (i.e., given the market, there remains a powerful incentive to loot).

The Met isn't jettisoning Shelby White. At least not yet.

She sits on its acquisitions, buildings and finance committees where, as an emeritus trustee, she no longer votes but advises the panels. The museum’s collection is still filled with dozens of antiquities that she either donated or lent. And just weeks ago, when the Met announced its new, stricter initiative on antiquities, White was appointed to a 12-member task force of trustees that will offer “their experience and counsel” to help shape the museum’s collecting practices and other policies with regard to cultural property issues.

The situation is, to put it mildly, awkward. And it's a sad coda to a long and distinguished philanthropic and art collecting career that it should wind down on such a sour note. (White is 84.)

All part of life at the pinnacle, I guess.