New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which is raising adult admission 25 percent to $25, paid Director Glenn Lowry $1.6 million in 2009.
Though Lowry took a 14 percent compensation cut, he remained among the best paid museum directors. His salary and bonus totaled $830,000. He also received $403,635 in retirement and other deferred compensation, plus housing in the museum’s luxury condominium tower valued at $318,000, according to MoMA’s 2009-2010 tax return.
The admission increase from $20 goes into effect Sept. 1, a result of escalating costs, the museum announced last week.
Ellen Futter, who runs the American Museum of Natural History, earned $972,249 in salary and benefits in 2009, up 0.5 percent from a year earlier. The Metropolitan Museum of Art paid its new chief, Thomas Campbell, $929,735. In July, the Met raised its adult admission to $25, which, unlike MoMA’s, is “suggested.”
Both Futter and Campbell earned what amounts to 20 cents per visitor in 2009-2010, while Lowry earned more than 50 cents for every attendee. The Met and the Museum of Natural History are public institutions that sit on city-owned land and depend on government beneficence. By contrast, MoMA sits on private land and receives little government operating support.
Since being hired from Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario in 1995, Lowry has worked to double gallery space. He led an $858 million capital campaign that increased square footage for exhibitions by 40,000, to 125,000.
