ANN: New Report, Database & Website on Private Art Museums


As part of the project ‘Return of the Medici?’, a research team at the University of Amsterdam led by Olav Velthuis has just published a new report on private art museums: Beyond the Global Boom. Private Art Museums in the 21st Century. The report reveals how the emergence of these museums holds up a mirror to ongoing inequalities in the art world, in particular around gender (only 16 percent of private art museums are founded by women), wealth (the average wealth of 58 founders for whom data were available, amounts to 11 billion USD) and geography (two thirds of all private museums are located in Europe and the United States; the number of private museums in Latin America and Africa is low and hardly rising)

The report can be downloaded from the accompanying website, www.privatemuseumresearch.org. It includes an interactive map which makes a new database on private art museums accessible.