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When my husband Joe and I travel, we sometimes like to visit museums – especially ones with exhibits or points of view we wouldn’t typically see. They’ve included:

• A museum in Vietnam dedicated to the Vietnam War
• Iceland’s Penis Museum
• A museum in Hiroshima, dedicated to the aftermath of the area after the U.S. bombed it with the world’s first atomic bomb
• The Museum of Death (I don’t really recommend a visit to that one. But we went, so…)

Funding didn’t go as planned

Museums are usually funded by government grants and/or donations. Because they give a lot of money, sometimes those who give large donations are able to take part in some of the decision-making for said museum.

For example, a $10 million donation to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles was made with the understanding that the museum would have a zero-dollar admission fee for the next 5 years.

“Art has the unique ability to bridge cultural and socioeconomic divides,” donor (and president of the museum’s board) Carolyn Clark Powers said in a statement at the time. “Charging admission is counterintuitive to art’s ability and purpose to connect, inspire, and heal people.”

Other museums have sometimes had to grapple with the strings attached to the donations they’ve received. A 2013 example, as covered in the New York Times:

Col. Michael Friedsam…ordered before he died in 1931 that his collection be kept together. Conservators there discovered that a quarter of his 926 works were not of museum quality, were misattributed or, in a few cases, were fakes.

And apparently, one billionaire philanthropist made his dissatisfaction known – but not until well after his death.

How a British philanthropist made his opinion known

If you’ve ever been to the UK, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the Sainsbury’s chain of grocery stores. Years ago, they were owned by Lord John Sainsbury, Baron of Preston Candover. Anyway, back in the 1980s, Lord Sainsbury donated tens of millions of pounds to fund a new wing of London’s National Gallery. All went well with the new wing, but he didn’t like one aspect of the design: two nonstructural, false columns in the building’s lobby.

Had the museum been in the U.S., it’s possible that someone who donated megamillions would insist that things be designed HIS way. Because, let’s face it, many Americans are pushy (don’t you give me that look; I’m saying this as an American – I know from what I speak). And if someone is a pushy American with the type of money where they’re used to getting their own way, you might be able to see how they could be willing to push museum planners around.

Lord Sainsbury was not that kind of man. Instead, he took the I-told-you-so approach that only an outraged but always polite Brit could get away with.

The Art Newspaper has been a “journal of record for the visual arts world, covering international news and events” for nearly 35 years. They recently reported that during a refurbishment of the National Gallery in 2023, construction workers demolishing the columns in question found a note that Lord Sainsbury had hidden inside one of them while it was being built in 1990. Typewritten on Sansbury’s letterhead and dated July 26, 1990, it read (in all capital letters):

IF YOU HAVE FOUND THIS NOTE YOU MUST BE ENGAGED IN DEMOLISHING ONE OF THE FALSE COLUMNS THAT HAVE BEEN PLACED IN THE FOYER OF THE SAINSBURY WING OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY. I BELIEVE THAT THE FALSE COLUMNS ARE A MISTAKE OF THE ARCHITECT AND THAT WE WOULD LIVE TO REGRET OUR ACCEPTING THIS DETAIL OF HIS DESIGN.

“LET IT BE KNOWN THAT ONE OF THE DONORS OF THIS BUILDING IS ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTED THAT YOUR GENERATION HAS DECIDED TO DISPENSE WITH THE UNNECESSARY COLUMNS.

Ummmm……MIC DROP!

According to the BBC, Lord Sainsbury’s son, Mark Sainsbury, said that his father and the architects had “vehemently disagreed on this element of the design,” and believed his uncle had suggested putting the letter in the hollow column as a way to keep the peace.

“It was my uncle Simon, I think, that kind of forged the compromise, that Dad get allowed to register his dissatisfaction in the form of this letter,” said Mr Sainsbury.

Lord Sainsbury passed away in 2022, at the ripe old age of 94. He didn’t get the satisfaction of learning his note had been found nearly 25 years after he had placed it there. However his 91-year-old widow, Lady Sainsbury (a.k.a. former ballerina Anya Linden) told The Art Newspaper that she was, “so happy for John’s letter to be rediscovered after all these years.”

Lord Sainbury’s widow and daughter were both present when the letter was removed from the column.

“It was a really lovely moment actually,” said Mark Sainsbury. “He was never one to say I told you so, but he would raise an eyebrow and a wry smile that finally we’d all seen sense.”

Feature Photo: Morio / Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 3.0

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