---
[ ARCHIVE ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/archive)
# The Art of Inequality: Museums Getting Richer, Public Schools Getting Poorer
April 18 2013
Written by Sam Pizzigati.
[](https://www.addtoany.com/share)
ARTS POLITICS - Thomas Campbell directs the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.
He’s smiling a great deal these days. Why? Campbell has [just received](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/arts/design/leonard-lauder-is-giving-his-cubist-collection-to-the-met.html) something museum directors only dream about: a donation of paintings, drawings, and sculptures *worth over $1 billion*.
The donor: cosmetics magnate Leonard Lauder. His gift? Seventy-eight masterpieces, including 33 Picassos and dozens of works by other prominent members of the Cubist movement.
*Forbes* [estimates](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-10/cosmetics-billionaire-lauder-pledges-cubist-art-to-met.html) Lauder’s overall net worth at more than $8 billion. He’s been donating hefty chunks of these billions to the art world for some time now. In 2008 alone, Lauder gave $131 million to New York’s Whitney Museum.
Philanthropy this bold thrills apologists for inequality. Immense concentrations of private wealth, these cheerleaders for grand fortune claim, enrich our civilization’s culture.
“The rich make life more interesting,” the prominent business editor William Davis [gushed](http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Rich.html?id=rSOWrkzpqZgC) in the early 1980s.
“Being rich doesn’t make you evil,” a *New York* [*Post* editorial proclaimed](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/the_art_of_free_markets_NMR3Pc06yluaFWxS55rhWO) after the new Lauder gift.
“And the accumulation of wealth can enrich others — in countless ways.”
Subjecting the rich to “millionaire taxes” meant to “share the wealth,” the editorial board fumed, only discourages gifts as generous as Lauder’s.
In reality, we’re seeing precious little wealth-sharing. The Lauder family and their fellow billionaires have watched tax rates on their incomes plummet. And the resulting squeeze on the public purse is having a substantial — and troubling — artistic impact, especially in America’s schools.
In New York City, as one local arts group [relates](http://www.cae-nyc.org/sites/default/files/docs/Research-Brief-Accelerating-Arts-Education-Cuts-June-2011.pdf), budget cuts [have painted](http://www.cae-nyc.org/sites/default/files/docs/Research-Brief-Accelerating-Arts-Education-Cuts-June-2011.pdf) a “grim picture for arts education.” Nearly a quarter of the city’s schools have no certified arts instructor.
New York hardly stands alone. In Los Angeles, an arts activist noted last fall, more than half the city’s elementary-age kids [are getting](http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/los-angeles/arts-education-lausd.html) no exposure to arts instruction. In Detroit, [60 percent ](http://www.thrivedetroit.org/the-arts-equipping-detroit-public-school-students-for-success/)of schools “lack art education as part of the curriculum.”
Nationwide, the same pattern. The U.S. Department of Education [reported](http://neatoday.org/2012/04/05/the-good-and-bad-news-about-arts-education-in-u-s-schools/) last spring that 4 million elementary school students [are going without](http://www.greedandgood.org/BookPDFs/ggculture.pdf) visual arts instruction. [Adds](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/02/report-arts-classes-at-el_n_1398550.html) Dan Domenech, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators: “We haven’t hit bottom yet.”
The “top” for arts education [came back](http://www.greedandgood.org/BookPDFs/ggculture.pdf) in America’s share-the-wealth golden age in the mid-20th century, the years when America’s wealthiest faced federal income tax rates as high as 91 percent, over double the top current rate.
In 1960, lawmakers in Albany Okayed the creation of the New York State Council on the Arts. Five years later, Congress established the National Endowment of the Arts. The federal government became, for the first time ever, a major player in arts funding. In community after community, federal dollars began leveraging a vital partnership of nonprofits and public agencies. The arts flourished.
We can’t, of course, totally blame the demise of this golden age on shrinking billionaire top-bracket tax rates. Other factors have been at play, most particularly the rising pressure on school systems to narrow the curriculum to subjects that lend themselves to endless rounds of standardized testing.
But who’s bankrolling this intensely market-driven approach to education that has no patience for “frills” like art? America’s billionaires, [through the vast network](http://toomuchonline.org/plutocracy-with-a-pleasant-philanthropic-face/) of think tanks and foundations they’ve so lavishly underwritten.
So let’s keep in mind what really happens to the arts when we let wealth concentrate. Museums get paintings from the awesomely affluent. These donors get plaques in the museums attesting to their generosity — and lucrative deductions on their tax returns.
And the rest of us? We pay our $25 admission to enter museums like New York’s Met as art education fades away from our schools.
*(Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, the weekly Institute for Policy Studies newsletter on excess and inequality. This column was provided to CityWatch by [OtherWords.org](http://OtherWords.org) a project of The Institute for Policy Studies.) –cw*
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 32
Pub: Apr 19, 2013
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/component/banners/click/115 "Brian Goldsmith Vertical R. Col")
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/component/banners/click/107 "LA DWP | Save $4K, Green | Priority Ad")
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/component/banners/click/114 "McKinney Campaign")
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/component/banners/click/82 "LA DWP #2 (Power Savers)")
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/component/banners/click/98 "Donna Tryfman - HS1-1")
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/component/banners/click/97 "Home - LA DWP #2 (Pay Water Bill Help)")
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/component/banners/click/111 "David DeJute Campaign")
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/component/banners/click/112 "Anna Reitano Vertical R. Col")
## Get The News In Your Email Inbox Mondays & Thursdays
Website
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/component/banners/click/113 "Rhonda Haymon campaign")
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/component/banners/click/110 "Something You Should Know")
---
## Featured CityWatch Stories
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/election-2024/33624-prosecutor-democrat-city-attorney-mckinney-makes-his-case-to-los-angeles-voters)
### [Prosecutor, Democrat, City Attorney? McKinney Makes His Case to Los Angeles Voters](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/election-2024/33624-prosecutor-democrat-city-attorney-mckinney-makes-his-case-to-los-angeles-voters)
ELECTION 2026 - The race for LA City Attorney has been laced with political accusations and allegations that when close…
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/la-watchdog/33544-the-la-watchdogs-2026-voters-guide-2)
### [The LA Watchdog’s 2026 Voter Guide](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/la-watchdog/33544-the-la-watchdogs-2026-voters-guide-2)
LA WATCHDOG - My recommendations are influenced by the need for truly balanced budgets, fiscal responsibility, long ter…
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/los-angeles/33626-the-fools-blame-game)
### [The Fools’ Blame Game](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/los-angeles/33626-the-fools-blame-game)
THE VIEW FROM HERE - Angelenos do not use elections to plot a wiser course of conduct for Los Angeles, but rather they…
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/los-angeles/33619-california-film-tax-credits-arent-enough-the-guilds-need-to-change-too)
### [California Film Tax Credits Aren’t Enough. The Guilds Need to Change Too.](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/los-angeles/33619-california-film-tax-credits-arent-enough-the-guilds-need-to-change-too)
LONNIE’S VIEW - California used to be the center of the movie and television universe. If you wanted to make movies, yo…
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/voices/33648-heres-what-zionisms-got-to-do-with-it)
### [Here’s What Zionism’s Got To Do With It](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/voices/33648-heres-what-zionisms-got-to-do-with-it)
ICAN - The anonymous website “BHUSD Watch” recently published a long, detailed article about the current BHUSD board an…
---
## [ ARCHIVE ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/archive)
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/archive/15339-early-intervention-and-jobs-are-key-to-stemming-chronic-homelessness-in-los-angeles)### [Early Intervention and Jobs are Key to Stemming Chronic Homelessness in Los Angeles](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/archive/15339-early-intervention-and-jobs-are-key-to-stemming-chronic-homelessness-in-los-angeles)
### [Tucker Carlson and Gay Rightwinger Blame California Wildfires On Hiring LGBTQ People](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/archive/18755-tucker-carlson-and-gay-rightwinger-blame-california-wildfires-on-hiring-lgbtq-people)
### [Anti-LGBTQ Veep Just Can’t Stop Talking about Mayor Pete](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/archive/17690-anti-lgbtq-veep-just-can-t-stop-talking-about-mayor-pete)
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/archive/15316-news-pulse-corrupt-system-reason-for-not-voting-in-2018-majority-wants-more-than-two-parties)### [NEWS PULSE: ‘Corrupt System’ Reason for Not Voting in 2018 … Majority Wants More Than Two Parties](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/archive/15316-news-pulse-corrupt-system-reason-for-not-voting-in-2018-majority-wants-more-than-two-parties)
[  ](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/archive/10245-dead-dog-set-on-fire-sparks-fears-for-strays-in-los-angeles)### [Dead Dog Set on Fire … Sparks Fears for Strays in Los Angeles](https://ded2209.inmotionhosting.com/~citywa9/archive/10245-dead-dog-set-on-fire-sparks-fears-for-strays-in-los-angeles)