A British study of spending on acquisitions by the world's greatest museums shows the biggest spenders on arts and artifacts are U.S. institutions.

The Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Los Angeles-based Getty Foundation outspent most other institutions around the world on acquisitions in 2005.

British museums and galleries had much less to spend, the study by the Art Fund of the U.K. found.

The study did not look at spending in Canada, but annual reports by Canada's largest museums show they have very little to spend on new works.

Canada's most well-financed museum, the National Gallery of Canada, had only a fraction of the acquisition budgets of the U.S. museums.

The National Gallery in Ottawa has $8 million to spend on new works in 2006 and endowments and grants from its foundation contributed an additional $600,000-$800,000 for new works.

By comparison, the Met spent $99.2 million US ($113.5 million Cdn) in 2005, more than half on a single work, Duccio's Madonna and Child.

MoMA spent $37.1 million US and the Getty, a well-endowed foundation, spent about $20 million US.

The only other museum in the same league is the Louvre, which spent 25.2 million euros ($38.4 million Cdn) on new works of art.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam had an acquisitions budget of 14.3 million euros ($22 million Cdn), the Centre Pompidou in Paris 7.1 million euros and the Reina Sofia in Madrid 2.7 million euros.

The acquisitions budgets for British museums were modest by comparison with the U.S. institutions, the Art Fund study found.

The National Gallery spent £6.3 million ($14 million Cdn), the Tate spent £4.8 million for all its U.K. sites, the Victoria and Albert spent £1.3 million and the British Museum £761,000.

The Art Fund, an independent charity dedicated to saving art, offers about £4 million in funding to British museums and galleries annually to buy for their collections.

It says it fears British institutions are falling far behind others around the world in spending power.

Pushing for policy

The Canadian Museums Association has been pressing the federal government for a national museums policy that includes stable funding.

Canada's largest museums are creating foundations and trying to encourage endowments to boost their spending power, said Marie Claire Morin, who helps encourage donations to the National Gallery Foundation.

"Canadians are generous. We're seeing an increase in levels of giving and in the numbers of people giving," she said.

"In terms of acquisitions, more donors are becoming sensitive to the need." 

For many museums, the most valuable acquisitions come through direct donation of collections by art lovers.

The Art Gallery of Ontario spent $1.27 million on new works in 2004-5, but the gallery received two important donations of photography, the Klinsky Agency holdings and a collection of French and U.S. photos from the Cold War era.

That is on top of a collection of 2,000 art works and an additional $20-million endowment fund, as well as funding for a significant museum expansion donated by the late Ken Thomson.