In the Arts: N.Y. Legislators Debate Museum Sales of Artwork; U.K. Watchdog Raps Lloyd Webber Charity

Museum executives and legislators gathered in a Manhattan hearing room on Thursday for an unusual public discussion about whether institutions can or should sell their holdings in times of financial need, The New York Times reports.

Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky — whose bill to ban museums from selling art and artifacts to cover normal operating expenses prompted the roundtable meeting — said he feared “a massive privatization of art.” But museum officials, backed by some legislators, said that amid the current financial crisis institutions faced the prospect of closure if they could not raise new revenue.

In other arts news, Britain’s Charity Commission faulted the Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation for displaying one of the masterworks it owns at a theater showing one of its founder’s musicals, reports the Telegraph.

A commission report said there was a “perception of public benefit” for the composer in showing the foundation-owned J.W. Waterhouse’s “St. Cecilia” at a London playhouse. The work is one of four masterpieces the charity has purchased with funds provided by Mr. Lloyd Webber, composer of Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and other blockbusters.

Also, Britain’s Conservative Party says it will cut arts spending and use tax breaks to encourage cultural philanthropy if it wins the forthcoming U.K. election, the Guardian reports.

And The Wall Street Journal assesses the financial affairs of the Judith Rothschild Foundation, which made news this week over its failure to pay any of its promised 2009 grants to small arts organizations.

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