Museum in New York gets $125 million in donation, jump-starts modern wing

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced Tuesday that a Chinese-American couple has donated a record $125 million to remodel the space that is home to the museum’s modern and contemporary art collection. 

Oscar Tang and his wife Agnes Hsu-Tang have given the Met, one of New York City’s most popular tourist attractions, the largest capital gift it has ever received in its 151-year history. In exchange, the newly renovated space will be named after them, according to the museum.

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Tang has previously donated art to the Met’s Asian department, including 20 important Chinese paintings from the 11th to the 18th centuries. He also donated “Riverbank”, a Song dynasty hanging scroll attributed to Dong Yuan, a 10th-century artist, though its authenticity has been questioned.

HsuTang, a former Mellon Fellow at Cambridge and Stanford, has a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked on international cultural heritage protection and rescue since 2006, advising UNESCO in Paris as well as President Barack Obama’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee.

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The funds will allow the museum to complete a long-delayed project that will include a multidisciplinary “re-envisioning” of the museum’s modern and contemporary art collection’s 80,000 square feet (7,400 square metres) of galleries and public space.

“The Modern Wing will encompass a full renovation of the current modern and contemporary galleries, which The Met has been seeking to renovate for more than a decade,” the museum told NDTV.

“With this remarkable gift, Oscar and Agnes are enabling The Met to realize its ambitious mission for future generations,” said Daniel Weiss, president of the iconic museum located next to Central Park.

Tang, an 83-year-old retired financier who has acted as a trustee for the museum for three decades, has financed previous exhibitions, art acquisitions, room extensions and other expenses over the years.