When at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego I was engaged in the negotiations with a donor who had the same desire, and his collection would have brought in substantial important objects to the collections -- however, there was also a fair amount of trash. We successfully (but,,,? see below) negotiated a plan for his gift to be accompanied by a cash gift toward naming a gallery, said gallery to be devoted to installations from the permanent collections -- and one third of the installation at any time would be of objects from his gift. Objects donated by him could be sold by the museum, the results used for other acquisitions still to bear his name. The museum could designate at its own discretion which objects it would choose to keep or to receive in order to market again. His gift was substantial, but it represented about one-third of total collection (we suspected he wanted to build the value of the remainder of his holdings through our plan). His gifts were to be made in installments (he wanted to test us that we would follow through with the plan); unfortunately his first set of objects included a substantial number of culls (cleaning out his drawers to see how cheaply he could get off?). When we let him know the museum's choices and rejects, he canceled the plans in a huff. It was hard to let go of such a collection, but the museum needed his best stuff. Ahhh... Richard Perry UC San Diego [log in to unmask]