LOS ANGELES – Trustees of the financially troubled Museum of Contemporary Art have accepted a bailout from billionaire Eli Broad worth as much as $30 million, securing the collection's place in a downtown cultural district that the philanthropist has aggressively backed.

DAMIAN DOVARGANES/The Associated Press

Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad (right) and Charles Young, CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation promised to match donations to the museum's endowment up to $15 million and to give $15 million over five years toward exhibitions, museum officials said last week.

By accepting the Broads' financial lifeline, the museum (better known as MOCA) obliged itself not to sell off any of its collection, to reject a merger proposed by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and to remain in its headquarters, which is designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Arata Isozaki.

"MOCA is one of the cultural and architectural jewels on Grand Avenue," said Eli Broad.

The board accepted the resignation of Jeremy Strick, the museum's director for nine years, and replaced him with Charles E. Young, who was chancellor of UCLA for 29 years and president of the University of Florida for four years.

Young will become the museum's first chief executive officer and oversee day-to-day operations.

MOCA's collection of nearly 6,000 works of art produced since 1940, including pieces by Roy Lichtenstein, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and other modern masters, is considered the most comprehensive contemporary art museum in the western United States, but it has recently suffered from severe money shortages.

The Broad funding will be part of an overall campaign to raise $75 million for endowment and operating expenses, museum officials said.

"It will be the shot in the arm that MOCA needs to get it moving," said Young.

He has named an advisory committee that includes John R. Lane, former director of the Dallas Museum of Art, who is president and CEO of the New Art Trust.

The Associated Press