President Obama may be proposing funding cuts for culture in his bleak 2011 budget, but he's once again signaled an enlightened approach to the arts by appointing New York painter Chuck Close to his Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. As one of the most visible American artists today, Close has long been a passionate promoter of artist rights and the arts generally. But of late, his signature issue has been the promotion of a cause that could dramatically alter the way that art makes its way into public collections.

For years, artists have been discouraged from directly donating art to museums because of an ill-conceived tax code that doesn't let them claim deductions on the market value of a work, only the materials used to make it — in his case the couple hundred dollars used to buy paint and canvas, rather than the $5 million or so that priciest paintings can sell for. Collectors who buy work and watch it skyrocket in price, on the other hand, can claim generous deductions on the full market value when giving away the art. Two long-pending pieces of legislation, the “Artists’ Contribution to American Heritage Act of 2005" in the House and “Artist-Museum Partnership Act” in the Senate, would allow artists to claim comparable benefits.

Obama's appointment of Close could signal an openness to this legislation, which he supported as a senator. (Or maybe he's just angling for a portrait like Bill Clinton's.) Others appointed to the president's humanities committee this month include San Francisco philanthropist Pamela Joyner; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri; Ken Solomon, chairman of the Ovation TV cable network; BET co-founder Sheila Johnson; and Los Angles music business lawyer Fred Goldring.