Museum of Latin American Art Gets Big Endowment

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Mar 7th 2009 at 11:02PM

One museum that has gotten a bit of financial help this week is the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California. It has received a $25 million endowment from the estate of its founder. Dr. Robert Gumbiner. According to the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Gumbiner was a pioneer in managed healthcare, who died in January at 85. He had established the museum in 1996 and was an avid collector of Latin American art. He left his substantial collection to the museum. Only the earnings of the endowment may be used to pay the museum's operating expenses and ten percent of the earnings have to be reinvested in the endowment in order to help keep the museum going for a long time. The museum will also get additional support from a gift of the Robert Gumbiner Foundation. Both endowments will generate money to pay less than half of the museum's operating costs and so fundraising is still essential. A gala is planned for April 25 and will be the first of a series of events to raise money for the museum.

The museum is located in the former home of the Balboa Amusement Producing Company, a silent film studio between 1913 and 1918. It is currently showing a solo exhibition by the Puerto Rican artist, Arnaldo Roche, titled Arnaldo Roche: Brotherhood/Hermandad which is comprised of 19 large-scale works created between 2002 and 2007.

Tags: art museum, ArtMuseum, long beach california, LongBeachCalifornia, molaa, museum of latin american art, MuseumOfLatinAmericanArt