The recession took a toll on Kansas City’s art museums,prompting some to mount fewer shows and others to cut staff or refrain from hiring as their endowments,investments and earned income dropped according to an article in the Kansas City Star.
But each story is different. Smaller institutions,like the Kemper and Nerman museums,felt the recession’s impact less acutely than the flagship institution of the local scene,the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
Three years ago,as the stock marked tanked,the Nelson saw its operating endowment drop by 30 percent. The museum’s earned income also felt the recession’s bite,forcing then-director Marc Wilson to cut staff.
Today’s brighter economic picture finds the Nelson and many other museums,locally and around the country,in much better shape.
“Leading U.S. museums are finally in recovery mode,” the Art Newspaper recently reported. Yet it found that the endowments of many museums,including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago,were close but still shy of their pre-recession levels.
The Nelson is one of the happy exceptions. READ MORE HERE
