THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603080007
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Arts and cultural institutions were among the first casualties of the economic recession of the late '80s and early '90s.
Governments - Virginia and its localities not excepted - whacked funding of arts and culture to balance budgets. Private-sector contributions flagged.
Many arts and cultural groups tanked. Most survived by cutting payroll and programs. The national economic recovery has brought scant relief.
This is old news. Nonetheless, the roughly 10 percent personnel cutback last month by the cash-pinched Chrysler Museum of Art was jolting. Seven employees were dismissed, among them the curator of 20th-century art and the head librarian, whose domain encompassed the largest art-research library in the Southeast. The hours of work and pay of two other museum staffers were halved.
The Chrysler is a first-rank visual-arts institution, described in April 1976 by arts-and-architecture critic Manuela Holterhoff in The Wall Street Journal as ``one of the 20 top museums in the country.'' Thanks mainly to the late Walter P. Chrysler Jr., who bequeathed the bulk of his extraordinary collection to Norfolk, the beautiful Florentine building at West Olney Road and Mowbray Arch shelters objects that, in the words of New York Times art critic John Russell, ``. . . any museums in the world would kill for.'' The museum's galleries abound with paintings, sculpture and decorative-arts treasures created by master artists and artisans. The 8,000-object glass collection is stunning.
Countless other museums, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, have had to pare staff and programs and boost or institute admission fees because of funding reductions. The Chrysler experienced a drop in city funding from $2.3 million in 1989-90 to $2 million in 1994-95 and in state funding from $735,000 to $472,000. Meanwhile revenue from annual memberships fluctuated between $267,000 and $401,000. The museum ended four consecutive years in deficit.
The only happy financial news for the museum is that revenue from other sources more than doubled from $349,000 in 1989-90 to $902,000 in 1994-95. But expenses also increased during the same period, from $3.4 million to $3.7 million, and then City Hall told the museum to plan to make do in 1996-97 with 10 percent less in municipal funding than this year's $1.9 million. The regrettable dismissals and hours-and-pay cutbacks followed.
The Chrysler's 24 trustees - 11 of whom are Norfolk City Council appointees - are bent on substantially expanding the museum's membership, funding, visibility, appeal, reach. They are searching for a director with the scholarly, managerial and promotional credentials required to implement the nearly complete strategic plan.
Wish them well and join the hundreds of volunteers and donors (often both) who have enabled the Chrysler to share its richness with more than 220,000 adults and children a year. The Chrysler is the pre-eminent arts-and-cultural entity in Hampton Roads. It should not ever again be so squeezed financially that it summarily jettisons employees who have served it well. by CNB