Tough economic times have forced museums to reconsider a long-held ethics policy on selling art from their collections, notes an article in The New York Times. But the issue is controversial.

Carmine Branagan, director of the National Academy Museum, in New York, faced more backlash than she had anticipated when the museum’s board decided to sell two Hudson River School paintings for about $15-million. The Association of Art Museum Directors responded to the sale with an e-mail message to its 190 members, denouncing the academy for “breaching one of the most basic and important of A.A.M.D.’s principles” and calling on members “to suspend any loans of works of art to and any collaborations on exhibitions with the National Academy.”

Ms. Branagan says the withdrawal of loans was a “death knell” for the museum.

Supporters of the ban on selling art to cover operating costs warn that institutions that do will suffer irreparable damage.

“Selling an object is a knee-jerk act, and it undermines core principles of a museum,” said Michael Conforti, president of the museum directors’ association and director of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. “There are always other options.”

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