The Armand Hammer Museum in California

The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, or the Hammer Museum, as it is commonly known, is a museum in Los Angeles, California. It is operated by the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.
 
Summary
 
The hammer includes a small collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionism. The museum houses more than 7,500 works by Honoré Daumier French satirist, the largest collection outside of Paris. In recent years, the hammer has become known for its collection of contemporary works of art on paper known. It also has fine paintings by Rembrandt, Titian and Chardin.[Edit] History
The museum was by Armand Hammer, the late CEO of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, founded as a place to display his extensive art collection. Mr. Hammer died 15 days after the museum opened to the public in November 1990. Mr. Hammer was a Los Angeles County Museum of Art board member for almost 20 years, starting in 1968, and during that time had promised his extensive collection of the museum. To LACMA surprise hammer instead he founded his own museum, built next to Occidental's headquarters and designed by the architect Edward Larrabee Barnes.
The Hammer presents key single-artist and thematic exhibitions of historical and contemporary art produced by their curators or prepared in cooperation with other institutions. The Hammer also has approximately ten Hammer Projects each year with international and local artists with a laboratory-like environment to create new work or present existing work in a fresh context. The hammer is a cultural center that offers a wide mix of free public programs throughout the year is over, presentations, lectures, symposia, film screenings, music events and other events. The Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum, opened in late 2006. The venue is the Hammer public programs and also the new home of the UCLA Film & Television Archive is well-known film library

The building was for $ 60,000,000 and the original endowment was $ 38,000,000 built. Hammer Occidental convinced the entire cost on the grounds that the museum would enhance the reputation of the company to finance. Occidental shareholders sued as a waste of corporate assets.
 
Controversy
 
In 1994, the Hammer Museum made headlines through the sale of Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester to Microsoft founder Bill Gates for $ 30,800,000. The Codex Leicester was one of the proudest acquisitions, Mr. Hammer in 1980 for $ 5,120,000, one, he tried unsuccessfully to buy the Codex Hammer rename. Most museums have a collection of guides to be used deaccessing art, the profits from the sale are needed for future acquisitions. The Hammer Museum sold the 72 alternative scientific notebook page, the museum's exhibitions and programs to fund. 

Management
 
In 1994 took over management of the UCLA Hammer Museum, the Armand Hammer Foundation maintain some control, recover, including a "reversionary clause" granting the rights to the Foundation's art collection and some of the Endowment Fund. The museum had long desired to remove these clauses.
On 19 January 2007, the Hammer Museum and the Armand Hammer Foundation agreed to dissolve their relationships, division of the estimated remaining 195 objects, which founded the museum, the foundation of maintaining 92 paintings on $ 55,000,000, while maintaining the museum objects 103 to 250 million $ estimated.