Minneapolis Institute of Arts given $8 million to endow director's salary

Sponsors' names show up regularly on stadiums, concert halls, hospital wings and museum galleries. Think TCF Bank Stadium or Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.

Now comes the Duncan and Nivin MacMillan Director and President of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

That new title will be announced Tuesday along with an $8 million gift from the MacMillans' foundation to endow the position now held by Kaywin Feldman, who has led the MIA since 2008.

The gift is the museum's largest ever dedicated to a staff position.

"This is really about supporting the long-term sustainability of the institution," said Feldman.

"Nivin [MacMillan] wanted to be sure we can always attract great talent to the leadership of the MIA, and it's more prestigious to have an endowed position because it demonstrates the level of commitment of the donors and the community."

Feldman's $475,000 salary will not change. But once the gift is invested, the income it generates will allow her present compensation to cover other expenses in the museum's $30 million annual budget.

Endowed directorships are not uncommon at major art museums. An informal check of 14 other key museums turned up endowed directorships at six. In New York City, directorships are endowed at the Whitney and the Brooklyn museums, but not at the Metropolitan, Frick or MOMA. Director posts are endowed at top art museums in Boston, Dallas, Atlanta and Los Angeles, but not in Detroit, Fort Worth, Kansas City, Cleveland or Chicago.

Typically such endowments require backing of $8 million to $10 million, Feldman said, though some are supported by less. "Four or five million is the outlier" now among curatorial positions recently endowed at museums around the country, she said.

Nivin MacMillan is the widow of W. Duncan MacMillan, a longtime director of Cargill Inc. who died in 2006. She chaired an MIA board committee that has raised more than $6 million for the museum's 2015 centennial celebrations.

A Philadelphia native, she became interested in the museum when she moved from London to the Twin Cities in 1975. At the suggestion of a friend, she enrolled in the institute's two-year docent training program, which prepares volunteers to lead gallery tours. Throughout the 1980s, she worked at the museum teaching other docents.

Since 1997 she has served on the museum's board of trustees and, through the MacMillan foundation, has provided financial support for museum projects, including special exhibitions of Rembrandt's paintings and masterpieces on loan from the Louvre. MacMillan funds also helped pay for a redesign of the museum's African galleries in 2013 and for purchases of prints, drawings, photos and American Indian art.

"Obviously, I'm committed to the ongoing success of the museum, and to succeed we need talented leadership," Nivin MacMillan said recently. "But underneath that, I really do believe in the power, value and necessity of art. That can sound facile, but I really mean it. Art touches me profoundly."

Mary Abbe • 612-673-4431