Art museums are looking for that next big gift

New York

PUBLIC museums, too tight on money these days to compete for major artworks in the marketplace, long for the collector's gift of world-class art that can broaden their offerings and attract new audiences.

The Bloch family - of the H&R Block tax preparation empire - bestowed such a gift in recent years with its donation of 29 prime pieces by masters such as Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.