Nonprofit News From Elsewhere Online
A collector’s landmark donation of South and Southeast Asian antiquities to the Art Institute of Chicago is caught in a tangle of questions about its provenance. Marilynn Alsdorf began giving a trove of about 500 items to the museum in the late 1990s, including statues of deities and other treasures likely taken from temples. It is not clear what she and her husband, James, understood of the pieces’ origins when they started collecting in the 1950s, but 24 of those objects now at the Art Institute “have incomplete provenance by modern standards, according to a national online registry of museum pieces.” At least another four may have been looted from Nepal, according to an investigation by ProPublica and Crain’s Chicago Business. The museum has cooperated with returning a handful of items. A spokesman says it takes the issue of looting seriously and has expanded its research staff. But repatriation activists say the Art Institute is dragging its feet and, in some cases, asking for documentation that developing countries with skeletal archeological agencies cannot provide. (ProPublica and Crain’s Chicago Business)
Plus: ‘Potentially Sensitive, Likely Stolen': Native Nonprofit Educating Buyers About Indigenous Artifacts on Auction (Native News Online)
More News
- Bailed Out, Arrested Again: These Charities Boomed After the Murder of George Floyd. They’re Under Fire for Bailing Out Violent Offenders (CNN)
- Colo.’s Nonprofit Hospitals Would Be Required to Spend More on “Community Benefit” Under New Bill (Denver Post)
- The Brewing War Over Who Goes Hungry in America — and How to Feed Them (Vox)
- James Madison’s Montpelier Receives $5.8 Million for Memorial to Enslaved (Washington Post)
- Ukrainian Students ‘Speechless’ and ‘Shocked’ by Full-Ride Scholarships From Pa.’s Dickinson College (PennLive)
- Where Mutual Aid Comes to Its Own Assistance (YES! Magazine)
Arts and Culture
- Detroit Art Museum Settles a Case Over a Van Gogh That It Mysteriously Secured From Brazil. It’s Not Saying Who Owns It (Associated Press)
- Another Art Museum Chief Quits As Russia Pressures Cultural Institutions (Washington Post)
Note: In the links in this section, we flag articles that only subscribers can access. But because some journalism outlets offer a limited number of free articles, readers may encounter barriers with other articles we highlight in this roundup.
