As the endowments of other rich institutions shrivel in the heat of Wall Street’s meltdown, with even the mighty J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles reporting losses of at least 25 percent, New York’s Museum of Modern Art is still sitting pretty. Early in 2008, before the stock market went into freefall, MoMA’s board of trustees instructed director Glenn Lowry to sell its equities and move to an all-cash position, according to a source familiar with the decision. As of last June, the museum had a whopping $718 million in its endowment. No one person has been credited with the divestment move, but MoMA’s board is filled with financial top guns, including the legendary banker David Rockefeller, the private-equity king Leon Black and the former PaineWebber CEO Donald Marron. "We really dodged the bullet," says one relieved staffer. (The museum declined official comment.)

"Cashing Out" originally appeared in the May 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's May 2009 Table of Contents.