The display was a reminder of the complexity in undoing philanthropic support from billionaires who were welcomed in the heyday of a globalized gilded age.
“It is more difficult to unwind decades of generous oligarchic donations, which, after all, have served to advance public interest in the West, than it is to seize flagrant symbols of oligarchic wealth, which many people resent,” said Stanislav Markus, a business professor at University of South Carolina who has studied Russian wealth.
A CFR spokeswoman said in an email last week that “it would no longer be appropriate” for Potanin to remain a member of its global advisory board “in light of Russia’s continuing aggression against Ukraine.” The Guggenheim Museum said he resigned from the board.
Potanin has sprawling interests that include a Russian pharmaceutical firm, a ski resort, a copper project and at least two superyachts.
After building his fortune, Potanin began reinventing himself as philanthropist -- becoming the first Russian to join Bill Gates’s and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge in 2013. He chairs the Hermitage Development Foundation, an endowment for the state museum in Saint Petersburg that was founded in 1764 with a collection of paintings acquired by Catherine the Great.
On his foundation’s website, Potanin said he wants philanthropy to be “more systemic, more business-like,” calling it a “vast, endless space that will never diminish.”
--With assistance from Amanda L Gordon and Devon Pendleton.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.