ORLANDO, Fla. — Orlando Museum of Art director Cathryn Mattson is keenly aware the Loch Haven Park institution was close to the brink in January.

“We should have been bankrupt and shut the doors,” she said. “But we’re not.”

Less than a year after facing a projected deficit approaching $1 million, Mattson says things are on an upward trajectory thanks to a “lot of hard work.”

“There’s so much positive energy,” she said. “It’s a new day for the museum.”

That new day follows a long, dark night in which a now-disgraced exhibit of works attributed to Jean-Michel Basquiat ended with an FBI raid in June 2022, a public crisis of confidence in the museum and ongoing lawsuits.

It all brought the museum to the brink of financial ruin.

“I came to fix it, and that’s what my focus is,” said Mattson, who was hired in April 2023 and brought an MBA in marketing and strategy, along with years of executive-consulting to the table. “All I can do is make sure we’re on a good path going forward.”

So how did she put the museum on that path?

“It was business 101,” she said: By reducing costs and increasing revenue.

By June 30, the end of the museum’s fiscal year, the museum had made up 90% of its budget deficit, she said, with the remaining gap “well below a hundred thousand dollars.”

“We came within striking distance of breaking even,” she said, though final numbers aren’t available yet as the museum’s financial statements undergo standard auditing. The museum’s budget for this year is $3.9 million.

How it was done

Multiple factors contributed to the rebound in the museum’s fortunes.

Timing worked in OMA’s favor in one key way: This year marks the museum’s 100th anniversary so it made sense to focus on its own $40 million-plus collection. That let the community experience the artistic riches of Central Florida — but it also saved the museum from spending on rentals, shipping and other fees associated with touring exhibitions, a savings Mattson called “substantial.”

The museum also used the common corporate practice of letting staff positions go unfilled to save on payroll costs.

“We’ve not laid off people, we’ve not furloughed people, we had voluntary exits,” said Mattson, praising employees who took on new responsibilities as a result of a smaller workforce. “The staff has been fabulous about stepping up.”

The museum currently employs 20 full-time and 16 part-time staff members.

OMA also eliminated most of the thousands in fees it had been paying since the Basquiat scandal broke. A crisis public-relations firm was dropped at the start of the year, and legal fees have been greatly reduced, Mattson said, although a lawsuit and countersuit between the museum and former director Aaron DeGroft remains active.

“Our legal expenses are not major at this point,” said Mattson, adding the remaining cases are “certainly moving toward resolution,” though she couldn’t provide a time frame.

The museum’s retail shop has been doing good business during the centennial, she said, and inroads have been made with donors.

“I’m having very different conversations with donors than I was a year ago,” Mattson said.

Going forward

With the museum on firmer ground, Mattson said, the time is right to position OMA for the next 100 years.

“A bad thing happened, but it was 15 months in a hundred years,” she said in reference to the Basquiat fiasco. “We stopped the bleeding, or we put out the fires, and now we we have to build an enduring and sustainable organization.”

One way to do that is by telling the museum’s story. OMA now outsources its marketing and public relations to the Orlando branch of Uproar PR. Mattson said it gives the museum more bang for its buck to have a whole agency working for it, rather than a single employee as was previously the case.

Similarly, the museum made a “strategic decision” to use an experienced consultant to manage grants and other fundraising, as opposed to hiring staff in that role, she said.

There’s also new internal oversight, with five new members having joined the board of trustees in the past year as others departed.

Mattson described the trustees as “active, engaged and paying attention.” Critics of the way the museum handled the Basquiat crisis often put the blame on the board, while former trustees said they were never informed about the FBI’s interest in the exhibit as part of a wider fraud investigation.

“It’s not the same board,” Mattson said of the current governing body. “It’s not business as usual.”

There’s also new leadership at the Friends of American Art, which buys works for the museum’s collection, and fundraising organization Council of 101 presented more than $500,000 to OMA in June.

Another bright spot came when a court approved modifying the terms of a $1.8 million bequest to the museum. Margaret P. Young had set up the bequest to purchase new art for the museum through a “Permanent Collection Fund.” The museum argued it had no fund with that name so the money should be available to support the current collection in other ways, such as paying for curatorial staff, security measures and vault maintenance. A judge and Florida’s attorney general agreed.

“The museum’s strategy has always been to acquire art through its volunteer collecting circles, gifts from the Council of 101 and individual donors, not through direct purchase by the museum,” Mattson said. “Thus, we sought the court’s approval to modify the terms to align with the museum’s evolving needs to maintain the collection, which benefits the public, while honoring the intent of the donor.”

The money is earmarked for the future and did not contribute toward reducing the recent deficit, Mattson said.

“We’re very grateful to that donor, and we are going to be utilizing that bequest over time,” she said. “We have not touched it. None of that money was used to close that gap.”

Building relationships

Forging new relationships, with donors, partners and potential patrons, is also a priority for the museum. It’s one of multiple organizations participating in an audience-building program run by the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, based at the University of Maryland.

The museum is already partnering with New York’s Bloomberg Philanthropies on creating a digital guide to its collection. “It’s a huge boost for us; it’s not the kind of thing you can afford to pay for on your own,” Mattson said.

And a $400,000 grant from Walmart heir Alice Walton’s Arkansas-based Art Bridges foundation for its Access for All initiative served as “a recognition of confidence in us” and could help attract other donors.

“It’s validation,” Mattson said.

The Access for All program helps build museum audiences by making admission free one day each month and helping pay for special programs during that free day. Orlando Museum of Art is seeing results: In January, 415 attended the first free day. By June, that number was up to 2,200.

Overall, the museum’s attendance has rebounded, reaching pre-COVID-19 levels in 2023 and growing 6% more last year, Mattson said. Indications are it will grow at an even faster rate this fiscal year; OMA expects 144,000 visitors, with about 18% being tourists.

For locals, the museum’s programs for people on the autism spectrum, with dementia and with limited vision remain popular, as does an LGBTQ youth program presented in partnership with the Zebra Coalition.

“Art can be a vehicle for healing,” Mattson said. “We want to do more of that.”

The challenges

While building new connections, Mattson knows there are some old relationships that can’t be restored.

“Some people are never coming back,” in the wake of the Basquiat-scandal fallout, she admits. Former trustees, former members of the museum’s support organizations and some community advocates have been outspoken in their dissatisfaction with OMA’s handling of the Basquiat situation.

But some relationships are moving in a positive direction, Mattson said, acknowledging regaining trust will take time and demonstrable actions.

“You can’t rush it. You can’t say ‘don’t think this way’ or ‘forget that happened.'” she said. “You have to show people by what you do. That’s the road we’re on. People give when they feel comfortable and when they feel inspired, and we want to inspire them.”

Nearly 200 supporters gathered recently for the museum’s 100th-anniversary gala.

“I couldn’t have wished for anything more,” Mattson said. “It was absolutely stunning.”

The uncertainty of public funding remains a challenge, as well, as exemplified by Gov. Ron DeSantis’s last-minute veto this summer of money for the state’s arts and cultural organizations. The museum missed out on about $72,000 as a result.

The museum took the loss in stride, but Mattson worries it could set an unwelcome precedent.

“It was catastrophic for some, it was not catastrophic for us,” she said, calling it “an inconvenience, for sure. We needed that money. I hope it’s never repeated.”

The biggest challenge, however, is likely to be the state of the museum’s building, built in 1959, particularly its roof.

The museum came through Hurricane Milton without major damage, but that’s in part because the roof has been leaking so long that OMA has a comprehensive and well-tested emergency plan. Two staff members remained in the museum during Milton to monitor the situation.

“We were able to de-install some exhibitions that were in areas of potential leaks, wrap and move objects, and provide protections both for our permanent collection as well as our current exhibitions.” Mattson said. Once again, our dedicated and hard-working staff stepped up, managed all of the cleanup in record time, and we were able to reopen to the public on Friday.”

The museum had requested $7.2 million through an Orange County grant program, funded by the Tourist Development Tax, to carry out a major refurbishment of the building. An advisory panel on spending the tax, a 6% fee on certain overnight stays, recommended $2 million for the museum. The Board of County Commissioners makes the final decision later this month.

Even knowing there is still much work to do and significant challenges ahead, Mattson said, the mood at OMA is upbeat.

“The energy is that the museum has turned a corner,” she said. “We’re very, very grateful to this community for supporting us for 100 years. It’s a big moment. We need to step back and appreciate it for what it is.”

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