Art Collecting and Gifts to Museums

<p><i>Art Collecting and Gifts to Museums</i> questions why private collectors donate their collection or parts of it to museums and examines what the implications of this gifting process might be.</p><p>Presenting case studies from Europe North America East Asia and the South Pacific this book is concerned with both elite and popular collections and examines the act of donating art from the collector’s point of view. Demonstrating that art museums depend on donations from private collectors Paul van der Grijp emphasizes that it is crucial to understand the psychological sociological economic and educational motivations for gifting works of art to institutions. Taken together the chapters argue that collectors donate to museums because the latter represent an imagined community to whom those collectors would like to bestow a sacred gift. Private collectors are Van der Grijp maintains motivated to ensure the immortality of their collections and ultimately to preserve some memory of their own lives in the process.</p><p><i>Art Collecting and Gifts to Museums</i> will be of interest to researchers and students engaged in the study of museums culture art anthropology history and sociology.</p>