How Much Should A Museum Director Earn?

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Aug 10th 2009 at 9:02PM

This past year we've watched museum after museum struggle through the recession. Some have been forced to close, others have had to fire employees. Nearly all have watched their endowment shrink. Therefore the annual news of the salary earned by Glenn D. Lowry, the director of New York's Museum of Modern Art strikes a particularly off note this year. Lowry, shown above with artist Ron Arad at the opening of Arad's retrospective at the MoMA, has long been one of the highest paid museum directors around. This year he actually took a pay cut, Bloomberg News reports that he earned $1.32 million in pay and benefits in the year ending in June, down from $1.95 million the year before. Lowry took a voluntary pay reduction; the previous year he had received a 13 percent raise. Lowry's compensation includes not just his salary and bonuses as well as a pension and health insurance but he also lives rent-free in the 52-story Museum Tower lifting his total compensation to $2.7 million in 2008.

After this year's big business meltdown many people are questioning how much CEOs of publicly owned businesses should be allowed to earn, a concern that has been around for a long time in the nonprofit world. Those who defend the high salaries say that the high-pressure job of being a museum director is worth the price and that the right director is key for attracting the big givers who donate both money and their prized collections to museums. But for museum staffers who often have advanced degrees and yet earn low salaries this can sometimes be hard to take. To Lowry's credit, he has balanced the museum's budget every year since he became director in 1995 and the museum has expanded its exhibit space and increased attendance. The Museum has also not had to lay off any employees yet.

All across the country museum boards are starting to look at salaries of directors. Like CEOs, museum directors have to satisfy a board of directors who want to see results. But instead of profits, museum success is measured in a variety of ways: success of fundraising, museum attendance and landing the big art donations are just a few of the criteria. There is no doubt that it is a challenging job. But after the rough year that nonprofits have experienced it seems unlikely that many directors will continue to receive seven figure salaries.

Tags: art, glenn lowry, GlennLowry, moma, museum of modern art, MuseumOfModernArt, museums

Filed under: Art

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

dinlong007 Aug 11th 2009 8:41AM

A balanced budget, no layoffs, higher attendance, increases in donations. Not to mention a voluntary 1/3 pay cut.

I fail to see any problems here. At a time where many execs are having trouble proving their worth, it seems to me Mr. Lowry should be commended on a job well done.

Keep up the good work!