The National Gallery has become the latest cultural institution in London to remove the Sackler name. The billionaire family is accused of making a profit from the US opioid epidemic.
The Times reports that staff have removed the Sackler name from Room 34, an exhibition space in the National Gallery that was known as ‘the Sackler gallery’ for three decades.
London’s National Portrait Gallery, British Museum and Tate galleries have all cut ties with the Sackler family, putting pressure on the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The V&A is the last museum in the city to bear the name in its Sackler Courtyard, which opened in 2017 following the family’s £8m gift to the institution.
British Museum, Tate cut ties with Sackler family
The National Gallery said the decision to remove the Sackler name had been “jointly agreed” with the Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation.
The gallery said it was “grateful for the support it has received from the foundation to undertake its educational and collection-related programmes”.
“The Sackler Foundation and the National Gallery have jointly agreed that after 30 years the naming of Room 34 as The Sackler Gallery should come to an end,” the museum told Artnet News in a statement.
The Sackler family made their fortune selling addictive painkiller Oxycontin through their company Purdue Pharma, which was documented in the Disney+ TV series Dopesick.
Guggenheim Museum removes Sackler name
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City has also quietly removed the Sackler name from its walls.
“The Guggenheim and the Mortimer D. Sackler family have agreed to rename the arts education center,” a spokesperson told Artnet News.
“We believe this decision is in the best interest of the museum and the vital work it does.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City previously dropped the name from seven exhibition spaces in the building. The Louvre in Paris became the first major institution to cut the Sackler name from a major wing in 2019.
Image: The National Gallery
