Met To Remove Sackler Name From Galleries Amid Opioid Scandal

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The Sackler name will finally disappear from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's galleries after years of scrutiny over the family's role in perpetuating the opioid crisis, the museum announced Thursday.

Seven exhibition spaces in the museum, including the famed Sackler Wing that houses the Temple of Dendur, will no longer be named for the Sacklers, the billionaire founders of the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma.

The museum and the Sackler family mutually agreed to the change, according to the museum. Since around 2019, pressure had mounted for the institution to ditch the sullied surname, as lawsuits accused the Sacklers of conspiring to increase their profits by heavily promoting addictive drugs — namely, the painkiller OxyContin.

But the family also donated generously to the Met, and other museums like the Guggenheim, the American Museum of Natural History and the Tate Modern in London. While the Met said in 2019 it would stop taking gifts from the Sacklers, it resisted calls to rename any galleries — even as protesters gathered on the museum steps, holding banners reading "Take Down Their Name" and "200 Dead Each Day."

Some museums, like the Louvre in Paris, removed the Sackler name far earlier. Dan Weiss, the Met's president and CEO, called Thursday's agreement "a gracious gesture by the Sacklers" which would help the museum "in continuing to serve this and future generations."

"The Met has been built by the philanthropy of generations of donors – and the Sacklers have been among our most generous supporters," Weiss said in a statement.

The family, in a joint statement, called the move "in the best interest of the Museum and the important mission that it serves."

The museum did not say whether the galleries would be renamed.

Legal battles against the Sacklers largely drew to a close in September, when a judge approved a controversial bankruptcy settlement that dissolved Purdue Pharma but shielded the family from future opioid lawsuits and allowed them to admit no wrongdoing.