As Guillaume Cerutti steps into his new role as president of the Pinault Collection, he is raising important questions about the place of museums and opportunities for European Union funding. In a post published on LinkedIn today (Aug. 12), Cerutti announced that he had just submitted a proposal for a European Fund for Joint Acquisitions by Museums as part of AgoraEU, the European Commission’s newly announced flagship program for culture, media and civil society, running from 2028 to 2034. The program is described as aiming to provide “spaces where citizens can meet, create and exchange, freely express their opinions and become more aware and appreciative of diversity,” according to its website.
Its structure reflects the policy areas it covers, with three corresponding programs: Creative Europe – Culture; MEDIA+; and Democracy, Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV+). AgoraEU builds on Creative Europe 2021-2027, which is allocating approximately €2.2 billion to support cultural and creative projects across Europe, including museum collaborations, digitization efforts, exhibitions and transnational partnerships.
As one of the program’s central aims is to strengthen international cultural partnerships and exchanges, Cerutti sees this new European fund as a timely opportunity for museums to explore cooperative models that allow them to enhance, expand and properly care for their collections, while also promoting and circulating them through shared networks of resources and funding.
The proposal for a €50 million joint acquisitions fund, presented to the European Commissioner and Director-General for cultural affairs, Glenn Micallef and Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen, outlines clear application criteria to support ambitious, pan-European purchases. Cerutti argues that E.U. support for collaborative institutional initiatives through additional financial support—such as covering one-third or one-quarter of an artwork’s purchase price—could serve as a catalyst.
“In this context, I believe that collaborations between museums at the European level should be encouraged,” he writes. While museums in Europe already collaborate extensively on temporary exhibitions through loans and co-productions, joint acquisitions of artworks by institutions from different countries remain rare.
Among the few recent examples is the acquisition of a pair of full-length Rembrandt portraits of an affluent couple, jointly purchased by the Musée du Louvre and the Rijksmuseum. To secure these masterpieces—resurfacing after years in private hands—France and the Netherlands struck an unprecedented intergovernmental agreement, sometimes dubbed the “Rembrandt Treaty,” to acquire them together for €160 million (€80 million each).
It marked the first time two countries jointly acquired high-profile works from the market, but Cerutti notes in his post that such cases are typically driven by unique circumstances rather than a coordinated strategy among museums.
Even with works prevented from export due to their “extraordinary national interest,” countries such as the U.K. and France are struggling to raise the necessary funds to acquire them—a requirement under their respective export-bar systems, unlike in Italy, where works can linger under cultural heritage restrictions for decades.
Most recently, the British government deferred the export license for Barbara Hepworth’s 1943 work Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red after it was sold overseas, allowing time for a U.K. institution to match the price: £3,652,180.63 (plus £129,800 VAT). The initial deferral ran through February 26, 2025, and was later extended after an option agreement was signed. The lead bidder is The Hepworth Wakefield, working in partnership with Art Fund, which launched a national fundraising campaign in June. By late July, reports indicated that the campaign was within a few hundred thousand pounds of its target, boosted by major grants—including from the National Lottery Heritage Fund—and donations from artists and foundations such as the Henry Moore Foundation. The outcome remains uncertain, with a public fundraising deadline of August 27, 2025.
Meanwhile, the U.K. Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is facing a real-terms spending cut of 1.4 percent across 2025/26–2028/29, including a 1.2 percent reduction in resource spending and a 2.8 percent cut in capital expenditure. Its administration budget is set to shrink 15 percent by 2030.
France’s cultural sector has also been hit hard this year, with the government slashing €2.2 billion in state subsidies. Arts funding has been cut by as much as 70 percent—a sharp departure from the so-called exception culturelle that has long protected France’s cultural sphere from market forces. Several of the country’s most iconic museums and monuments—including the Louvre, the Château de Versailles, the Château de Chambord and the Arc de Triomphe—have raised ticket prices for all non-E.U. visitors while seeking new revenue streams to maintain operations.
Germany is following a similar path. Berlin’s culture budget was slashed by €130 million—nearly 13 percent of the city’s total arts allocation—in one move, with another 12 percent reduction slated for next year. These cuts threaten the survival of independent theaters, galleries, artist studios and festivals and have triggered widespread protests across the cultural sector.
Cerutti acknowledges that this may be a delicate subject for curators, who often feel strongly about retaining full ownership of collection works and limiting their circulation to ensure proper conservation. But with acquisition budgets shrinking and prices for major works continuing to climb, he argues that joint purchases are becoming a necessity rather than an option. To keep national collections relevant, engaging and representative of evolving identities and histories, institutions must pool resources.
“I believe that pooling resources for joint purchases—and defining policies for the long-term rotational display of jointly acquired works among partner institutions—should be a priority for public cultural policy,” he writes.
While Cerutti’s foray into cultural politics may surprise some—especially with such an ambitious proposal—it aligns with his background. He is widely known in the art world for holding leadership positions at major auction houses, serving as CEO of Sotheby’s France, then as deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and, more recently, as CEO (2017–2025) and chairman (from 2023) of Christie’s. Yet before entering the private sector, Cerutti held several senior positions in French cultural policy and administration, including chief of staff to the Minister of Culture (2002–2004) and director of the Centre Pompidou (1996–2001). In 2016, he co-authored the book La Politique culturelle, enjeu du XXIe siècle: Vingt propositions, and he has regularly contributed articles on cultural politics to publications such as Le Monde, Les Échos, Commentaire and L’Opinion.
Though he remains chairman of Christie’s board, the January shake-up in the Pinault empire placed him at the center of the family’s broader cultural and artistic agenda, which is closely aligned with France’s ministry of culture. How the Pinault Foundation might play a larger role in supporting France’s embattled cultural sector remains to be seen, but it is now led by a culturally savvy executive with firsthand experience navigating both public and private institutions who appears intent on building stronger bridges between cultural stewardship, public policy, philanthropy and the market. In this context, it will also be worth watching how value circulates between public and private spheres in the art world, particularly as the broader cultural sector urgently searches for new models to ensure sustainability.
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