Traditionally, collectors donated private money and private art to create great museums in the United States.

Occasionally, private collectors of African-American art donate works to universities or other institutions that seem able to catalog and display them.

To encourage collectors to donate art to museums, directors and curators are always exploring creative ways to make giving appealing.

Several collectors lent or donated equipment to the exhibition.

In some instances, collectors donated large book collections.

The collector would donate the painting to the museum, receiving a tax deduction for the market value of the painting.

He donated one sculpture about two years later and a collector donated the other, he said.

More than 1,200 artists, illustrators, and collectors have generously donated books and original materials to the collection.

Private collectors would acquire looted artifacts and eventually donate them to museums, she said.

Is a museum ever justified in renouncing its independent curatorial voice, even if doing so encourages collectors to donate work?