Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal • July 18, 2016 www.wbjournal.com K ent Russell and the six person staff at the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton didn't expect to be involved in their second international inci- dent in 10 years this summer, but the museum had to send 16 of its more than 1,000 artifacts to be seized in Russia so the Ministry of Culture could grant another tempo- rary export permit for the $1 million worth of icons. This came after the museum had to forgo a $900,000 investment to return a temporary exhibit it had on loan back to Russia. Despite the confusion, Russell said the museum's prima- ry goal is to promote Russian culture in the U.S. – fulfilling the vision of Gordon Lankton, the former CEO and chairman of Clinton plastics manufacturer Nypro, who founded the museum in October 2007. The museum has the largest collection of Russian icons outside of Russia, correct? This is the largest collection of Russian icons outside of Russia. There are three spe- cific icon museums outside of Russia (the other two are in Germany), although there are several significant reasonable collections of icons throughout the world. For example, the Metropolitan Museum in New York has 120 icons, and we have more than 1,000. What is an icon exactly, and what is its role in Orthodox Christianity? An icon is a sacred art object, more than it is a work of art. It is created purposefully for the use in prayer and contemplation. It is one of the oldest Western European art forms. It derives directly from very early the ancient world and very early portraiture. It is one of the art forms that remains completely unchanged and is it always was for roughly the last 2,000 years. How did this collection get its start? Gordon Lankton had a factory in Moscow, and one day he went to a flea market and picked up an icon for a very modest sum of money in 1991 or 1992. He brought it back, fell in love with the art form. All of our icons are from Gordon's collec- tion. He has donated the collection to a 501(c)3 organization that is governed by a board of directors independent of Mr. Lankton, although he is a board member. What is the value of the entire collection? We haven't done an appraisal recently, but the value is in the 10s of millions of dollars. How do you cover your $1.2 million annual operating budget? Roughly one third of our operating need is covered by earned income – admissions, programming fees, the net of the retail shop and cafe, tours, royalties, fees that we get for lending icons in exhibitions. Inside of that third is our fundraising, which is about 10 percent of our total budget. The rest right now is donations from Mr. Lankton, who covers roughly 70 percent of our operating costs of the museum. The gold standard for museums worldwide would be a third, a third and a third – a third fundrais- ing, a third earned income and a third endowment. We will get there eventually. Are most of your 16,000 annual visitors local or from outside New England? We get people internationally. If you are deeply interested in icons, this is a must-see collection. We get people from Brussels, from China, from Paris, from England, all over the world. When we do our internation- al conferences, which we do every other year, we get people from Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, England, France and Russia. What do they think of Clinton? People come up to me, and they say, "I love your quaint town." The thing about Clinton is it has its own independent cinema, it has some pretty good restaurants on the main street – High Street – in town. It is a reasonable size town with all the amenities in it, so it is a nice day trip from Boston or somewhere else. Most people love it. n THETICKER In The File Kent Russell SHOP TALK 4.85 This interview was conducted and edited for length and clarity by Brad Kane WBJ editor $100 to $1,000 >> n The Massachusetts Senate proposed increase in fines for companies violating the equal-pay law for men and women. Source: Massachusetts Senate Bill 2107 TITLE: Curator and CEO RESIDENCE: Lunenburg EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; master's degree in history of art, City College of New York. Source: Big Y n The amount of local produce that Springfield-based Big Y purchased in 2015. $26M Source: State House News Service n The amount lawmakers slashed the UMass funding request. n Rooms that were recently added in Marlborough with the official opening of the Hilton Garden Inn. 160 Source: Hilton Garden Inn Russian icon museum faces interna- tional incidents, fundraising goals Go to WBJournal.com to watch video clips from Russells' Shop Talk interview On WBJournal.com P H O T O / B R A D K A N E million pounds Kent Russell, curator and CEO of the Museumof Russian Icons in Clinton

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