BOSTON.- Jason Edward Kaufman of the Art Newspaper reported that Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) has leased 21 of its 36 Monet paintings, including depictions of Rouen Cathedral, waterlilies, and haystacks, to the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Arts, located inside the Bellagio casino and hotel complex in Las Vegas. The gallery is a for-profit exhibition space run by Paperball, a division of the New York-based art dealers PaceWildenstein.  Andrea Bundonis, who runs Paperball with her husband, PaceWildenstein president Marc Glimcher, says contractual obligations preclude her discussing financial details, but explains that “Paperball runs the gallery as a for-profit business that is not profitable until lenders to the exhibition are financially satisfied. We don’t make money until they make money.” Once the company recoups expenses that may include insurance, shipping, or other costs, both parties share revenues from entry fees and merchandising.
Paperball or its parent PaceWildenstein guarantees a minimum return that Newsweek reports as $1 million for the Monet show, but MFA director Malcolm Rogers told The Art Newspaper, “The figure is entirely speculative.”
By renting art to a commercial enterprise, the MFA may have contravened the Association of Art Museum Directors’s (AAMD) professional code of practice which stipulates that in “any decision about a proposed loan from the collection, the intellectual merit and educational benefits, as well as the protection of the work of art, must be the primary considerations, rather than possible financial gain.”
“There is a diversity of opinion among the AAMD membership about the Boston loan,” said AAMD president Peter Morrin, adding that “it is a matter being discussed by several of our committees.”
Mr. Rogers says there is educational benefit to showing works in another city. “I saw some school parties,” he says, recalling a recent visit to Las Vegas with MFA trustees. “There is also a financial dimension,” he concedes, “and that creates a virtuous circle.”
The show was Mr. Glimcher’s idea, not the MFA’s, says Ms Bundonis, explaining that her husband approached Mr. Rogers last April, and by summer had MFA board approval for the seven-month loan. All of the exhibition materials, including the free audio guide, wall texts, and a souvenir catalogue, were paid for, written, and produced by Paperball with MFA approval, which Mr. Rogers notes is “as we do for Nagoya”, referring to the MFA’s outpost in Japan. Asked if economic considerations were foremost, Mr. Rogers acknowledged that, “We have all seen the effects of the recession, 11 September, and diminished endowments, and we are all looking for ways to make ends meet.”
“Claude Monet: Masterworks from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston” is at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Arts, Las Vegas, Nevada