Tate will no longer take donations from the Sackler Trust following opioid scandal

Tate will no longer take donations from the Sackler Trust following its opioid scandal, it has been revealed.

The organisation’s move follows the National Portrait Gallery’s joint decision with the Trust to not proceed with a £1 million donation following protests about the family’s controversial manufacture of OxyContin - a highly addictive painkiller.

Members of the Sackler family have made billions from OxyContin, and a civil lawsuit alleges that their pharmaceutical firm Purdue Pharma pushed doctors to prescribe the drug and misrepresented its risk factors, contributing to the opioid crisis that is gripping the US. The family deny all allegations.

According to The Times, Tate’s board of trustees accepted a recommendation from its ethics committee to refuse any future donations from the Sackler family

In the last 20 years, Tate has received some £4m from different family trusts and has named areas of its buildings after them, including Tate Britain’s Sackler Octagon - a reception room  for up to 300 guests.

A Tate spokesperson said last night: “The Sackler family has given generously to Tate in the past, as they have to a large number of UK arts institutions. We do not intend to remove references to this historic philanthropy. However, in the present circumstances we do not think it right to seek or accept further donations from the Sacklers.”

But other institutions have not so far followed suit.

Royal Museums Greenwich, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Westminster Abbey, Serpentine Galleries, the Royal Opera House and Natural History Museum are among those who either refused to answer or said they would not be returning monies, according to The Times.

The University of Sussex, which received more than £8 million for the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, said that it was “monitoring the US legal situation”.

Dame Theresa Sackler is chair of the Sackler Trust, a board member of the Victoria and Albert Museum and a trustee of the Tate Foundation.

She is facing civil charges in the US due to her involvement with Purdue Pharma but denies any wrongdoing.

Last month, the US artist Nan Goldin, a former OxyContin addict said she would refuse a retrospective of her work at the National Portrait Gallery if it accepted the £1m donation.

She told the Observer: “I have been invited to have a retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery and I have told them I would not do it if they take the Sackler money.

“My message is for all institutions everywhere which are taking Sackler money.

“People are pushing back and, if they want to maintain their standing as cultural institutions and educational institutions, they have to listen to the people and they have to do the right thing. They have to make a decision.”