In general, the majority of art museums include the practice of deaccession in their collection management policy. Although there are no official laws guiding deaccessions in North America, several professional museum associations have provided codes of ethics governing that practice. They have each agreed that all proceeds from sale or auction should be used only to maintain existing collection assets and acquire future collection items more relevant for the museum. Their decision is aligned with museums’ mission of preserving and exhibiting art pieces for present and future public viewers.

In April 2020, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) had temporarily relaxed its rules in order to allow art museums to spend funds raised from deaccessioning for their general operating expenses. However, some continue to view deaccessioning as an unethical practice because patrons and artists would hesitate before donating art if they believed that their works could be sold at auctions. They have identified and raised major ethical concerns around the prohibition of selling collection pieces to museum stakeholders or their relatives, and the need of restricting the use of income from any items disposed of via sale or auction.

Although they tend not to talk about it publicly, museums regularly part with their works for all kinds of reasons, and use the profits to buy any artworks aligned with a new vision. In 2018, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) had sold seven paintings by artists already well represented in the museum’s collection at Sotheby’s, raising around $16.2 million to diversify its assets – subsequently acquiring art works by women and artists of color such as Jack Whitten, Wangechi Mutu, and Amy Sherald. In 2019, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art sold a painting by Mark Rothko for $50.1 million at Sotheby’s, using the proceeds to acquire art works by underrepresented artists.

Since the start of the pandemic crisis, various art museums started to offer collection items through high-profile auctions following the AAMD decision. Last year, the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse sold a painting by Jackson Pollock for $13 million at Christie’s. The Palm Springs Art Museum sold a canvas by Helen Frankenthaler for $3.9 million at Sotheby’s. The Brooklyn Museum raised $6.6 million through Christie’s sales, which included a painting by Lucas Cranach sold for $5.1 million. These actions raised questions about whether some institutions were using the pandemic as an excuse to sell off items to correct recurring financial shortcomings. In October 2020, the BMA called off a controversial Sotheby’s sale of art works valued around $65 million, after an ensuing outcry.

In contrast, a majority of European museums are not allowed to raise funds through deaccession of artworks in order to cover their expenses due to the pandemic. Most of them (especially in United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Germany) need to generate their own funds by relying on the revenue from public visits, exhibitions, and patronage. In France and other Latin countries, all public assets including the contents of publicly owned collections such as museums, libraries or other cultural institutions are regarded as inalienable possessions. This situation has generated several debates on the relevance of such measures in times of crisis. While nobody suggests selling famous masterpieces, there are still questions around which art works should be sold to private collectors.

For now, several European public museums from France, Spain, Italy, and Greece amongst others, are receiving some form of state subsidy to cope with the ongoing crisis. People in charge of museums’ management and governance are mainly civil servants paid by the state, which allocates an annual budget for operating expenses including staff’s salary, collection care, and insurance. As of today, no French public museum has had to lay off employees, even though they were forced to temporary close their doors. When this pandemic is over, it will be necessary to identify the economic impact of the drop in museum activities on the total public debt.