When, If Ever, Can Museums Sell Their Works? The director of the art-rich yet cash-poor National Academy Museum in New York expected strong opposition when its board decided to sell two Hudson River School paintings for around ＄15 million. The director, Carmine Branagan, had already approached leaders of two groups to which the academy belonged about the prospect. She knew that both the American Association of Museums (AAM) and Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) had firm policies against museums' selling off artworks because of financial hardship and were not going to make an exception. Even so, she said, she was not prepared for the directors group's immediate response to the sale. In an e-mail message on Dec. 5 to its 190 members, it condemned the academy, founded in 1825, for 'breaching one of the most basic and important AAMD's principles' and called on members 'to suspend any loans of works of art to and any collaboration on exhibitions with the National Academy.' Branagan, who had by that time withdrawn her membership from both groups, said she 'was shocked by the tone of the letter, like we had committed some crimes.' She called the withdrawal of loans 'a death knell (丧钟声)' for the museum, adding, 'What the AAMD have done is basically shoot us while we're wounded.' Beyond shaping the fate of any one museum, this exchange has sparked larger questions over a principle that has long seemed sacred. Why, several experts ask, is it so wrong for a museum to sell art from its collection to raise badly-needed funds and now that many institutions are facing financial hardship, should the ban on selling art to cover operating costs be eased? Lending urgency to the discussion are the efforts of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, which has one of the world's best collections of contemporary art but whose funds is said to have shriveled(萎缩) to ＄6 million from more than ＄40 million over the last nine years. Wouldn't it be preferable, some people asked this month, to sell a Mark Rothko painting or a couple of Robert Rauschenberg's legendary 'combines' -- the museum owns 11 -- than to risk closing its doors. Finally, the museum announced ＄30 million donations by the billionaire Eli Broad last week that would prevent the sales of any artworks. Yet defenders of the prohibition warn that such sales can irreparably (不能挽回地) damage an institution. 'Selling an object is a knee-jerk (下意识的)act, and it undermines core principles of a museum,' said Michael Conforti, president of the directors' association and director of the Clark Art Institute in Williams-town, Massachusetts. 'There are always other options.' The sale of artwork from a museum's permanent collection, known as deaccessioning(博物馆收藏品等出售), is not illegal in the United States, provided that any terms accompanying the original donation of artwork are respected. In Europe, by contrast, many museums are state-financed and prevented by national law from deaccessioning. But under the code of ethics of the American Association of Museums, the proceeds should be 'used only for the acquisition, preservation, protection or care of collections.' The code of the Association of Art Museum Directors is even stricter, specifying that funds should not be used 'for purposes other than acquisitions of works of art for the collection.' Dorm Zaretsky, a New York lawyer who specializes in art cases, has sympathized with the National Academy, asking why a museum can sell art to buy more art but not to cover overhead costs or a much-needed education center. 'Why should we automatically assume that buying art always justifies a deaccessioning, but that no other use of proceeds -- no matter how important to an institution's mission--ever can' he wrote. Even Patty Gerstenblith, a law professor at DePaul University in Chicago kno