City seeking access to Stateside arts treasures

THE wooing of America's major art institutions and its millionaire Scottish émigrés is top of the wishlist given to Glasgow's newly-appointed cultural ambassador, Vartan Gregorian, by leisure boss Bridget McConnell.

The 73-year-old is currently president of the philanthropic Carnegie Foundation but was recently appointed special advisor to Culture and Sport Glasgow, the charitable body, headed by McConnell which was formed to take over culture and leisure services from Glasgow City Council, and headed by McConnell.

Gregorian's is an unpaid, part-time role which will bring him to Scotland only two or three times a year. But with an address book to kill for, McConnell hopes the Iranian-born educationalist, administrator and über-fundraiser will give her and Glasgow access to some of the riches - both cash and artistic - locked away in America's museums and mansions.

Speaking to the Sunday Herald, Gregorian outlined some of the issues McConnell discussed with him when she visited him in New York recently.

One was building mutually-beneficial relationships between Glasgow's museums and art galleries and New York institutions such as the world famous Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This relationship would be about reciprocity, said Gregorian: "Co-operation means you exchange paintings for exhibitions. They lend them to you, same as Scotland lends pictures to MoMA and other galleries." It helps that Gregorian is on the MoMA board, just one of several highly-placed positions he holds.

Another subject he and McConnell touched on, however, was how to capitalise on goodwill felt towards Scotland by members of the diaspora whose families had prospered in America.

"There are major Scottish families here," said Gregorian. "Some of them have collections they may give to American museums. But have they ever considered giving to Scottish ones? Bridget wants to show that Scotland is equally as good at safeguarding some of the great assets that a handful of multi-millionaire Scottish families in the United States might have."

Those dynasties include the MacMillan family, who own agricultural behemoth Cargill, one of the world's wealthiest privately-owned companies.

"The MacMillan family have been beneficiaries of Brown and Princeton universities and the family loves Scotland. Several members have written their own history of the clan," said Gregorian. "If there's that deep affection for Scotland, why not make a pitch?"

A pitch could include aiming for funds, partly, but also for the contents of art collections, archives and libraries.

Gregorian is already well known to business leaders in Scotland through his connection with the Hunter Foundation, formed by businessman-turned-philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter.

In January of this year he made headlines by calling for a doubling of budgets for all Scottish universities, arguing that a massive investment in education was needed for Scotland to reap the dividends of the knowledge economy and, perhaps, bring about the much-vaunted Second Enlightenment.

Advice to McConnell will only come when it is asked for, however, said the cultural ambassador.

"Let me quote Lord Chesterfield," Gregorian said. "Having expertise, knowledge or experience is like having a pocket watch. Wait until someone asks what time it is before you tell them - don't go round town saying, Do you want to know what time it is?' "So my role is that: to give advice when asked, and when appropriate," he added.