In 2013 Detroit was bankrupt. Everyone knew that. Crippled by the loss of the automotive industry, massive city debts, and looming retirement pensions that needed to be paid, the state of the city’s financial future was looking bleak. After filing a chapter 9 bankruptcy claim for $18-$20 billion, the city was getting desperate. That was when the conversations about allocation and sale of the city’s assets came in. The largest and most prominent of these, in fact, is the (at the time) city-owned Detroit Institute of Art. The Detroit Institute of art was an internationally recognized museum that housed beautiful, old, rare, and valuable works of art. That being said, it was still city assets. Therefore, the museum and all its art were placed on the table of bankruptcy negotiations.
The looming threat that the Detroit Institute of Art and its treasured pieces might be auctioned off at the bottom of the barrel prices in a ditch attempt to help the city’s debt was a terrifying to many people. The local community in Detroit and especially those involved in the arts were horrified at the possibility of such a substantial loss. This threat spurred what is now considered possibly one of the most significant philanthropic efforts to get a historic city out of the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States.
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