The Ashmolean Museum, the University of Oxford’s museum of art and archaeology, is to remove the name of the Sackler family from its galleries and job titles.
In a statement, the University of Oxford said it has reviewed its relationship with the Sackler family, which is accused of making a profit from the US opioid crisis.
Following the review, the university has decided that the “buildings, spaces and staff positions using the Sackler name will no longer do so”.
The British university said the “review outcomes have had the full support of the Sackler family” and were approved on 15 May.
Sackler family and the US opioid epidemic
The Sackler name will be removed from two galleries at the Ashmolean Museum. It will also be dropped from two of the museum’s job titles.
Additionally, the University of Oxford’s Sackler Library will now become the Bodleian Art, Archaeology and the Ancient World Library.
The Ashmolean Museum is the latest cultural institution to cut ties with the Sackler family, who sold addictive painkiller OxyContin through their company Purdue Pharma. This is documented in the 2021 Disney+ drama Dopesick.
Additional museums to remove the Sackler name from their walls include London’s V&A, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the Design Museum, the British Museum and Tate.
The Louvre in Paris was the first major institution to cut the Sackler name from a wing in 2019. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum have also dropped the Sackler name.
At the University of Oxford, the Sackler name will be retained on the Clarendon Arch and on the Ashmolean Museum’s donor board for “the purposes of historical recording” of donations.
“All donations received from the Sackler family and their trusts will be retained by the university for their intended educational purposes,” said the University of Oxford.
“No new donations have been received from either the family or their trusts since January 2019.”
Images: University of Oxford
