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If you’re spending millions on art, you’re a museum, you’re being swindled, or you’re trying to find a clever way to shift your cash around.

And I doubt hospitals are debuting rediscovered Van Gogh works. Buying affordable works from local artists can fill a massive hospital for well under a million.

Or Van Gogh prints, for that matter.

I think the real issue is that these folks are profiting so much as to afford the art while folks have trouble paying for hospital stays. There are so many ways to get original artwork on the walls for a much cheaper price tag, after all - and things get even cheaper if one looks into prints.

I guess there are cheaper ways to achieve that. I think they are more to impress people.

The responses here decrying the cost of the artwork and suggesting replacement with prints denies any and all value to artworks as profound objects, and could easily be as mis-applied to museums themselves.

For those lacking understanding of the value of art in this context here is a good recent piece of research with many useful references: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5328392/