Gearing up for its major expansion, the Museum of Modern Art announced this week that it had begun a $650 million capital campaign. It is believed to be the largest fund-raising effort by any museum in the country and possibly by any American cultural institution.
So far about $300 million has been raised, including $65 million from New York City, officials at the Modern said. Mayor Rudolph W. Guiliani pledged that amount, to be paid over the next three years, in April for the new building, which is to rise on the site of the Dorset Hotel and adjacent brownstones. On Wednesday the Mayor confirmed a first payment of $15 million.
The expansion project has the city's enthusiastic support because museum officials estimate that it will generate about $636 million a year for New York City in increased employment, tourism and tax revenues. They also estimate that it will add about $72 million a year to state revenue. The money from the campaign will be used to buy the land and construct the building, and will also add to the museum's endowment. The Modern already has a $300 million endowment; when the campaign is completed it is expected to grow by $150 million.
''We begin this campaign with an incredibly strong foundation,'' said David Rockefeller, chairman emeritus of the Museum.
The money raised so far has been a result of efforts led by the Modern's capital campaign committee, which includes the museum's chairman, Ronald S. Lauder; its president, Agnes Gund; June Larkin, Mr. Rockefeller and Lewis Cullman.
''Twenty-four people have given us $5 million or more,'' said Glenn D. Lowry, director of the Modern. One reason for the campaign's early success, he said, is that ''unlike many other museums, we haven't been in a perennial capital campaign mode.'' The museum's last such campaign was about 20 years ago, when it was preparing for its 1984 expansion.
''People love this institution,'' Mr. Lowry added. ''It's this kind of loyalty and commitment that allows us to tackle a number like $650 million.''
The new building, which will be designed by the Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi, is expected to begin construction in late 2000 and be completed in 2005. Mr. Taniguchi was awarded the job after an international competition.
As the museum continues to grow, so does its space problems. In the three years that Mr. Lowry has been director, attendance has risen to 1.7 million from 1.3 million, just enough to make the galleries seem perpetually crowded. Its highly praised Jackson Pollock retrospective is attracting about 4,000 visitors as day, which is about all the museum's galleries can comfortably accommodate. Total attendance at the museum is more than 6,000 a day, museum officials said.
''The capacity to grow even more is there,'' said Mr. Lowry. In its new home, the museum will have not only larger galleries in which to show its collection and contemporary art, but also an expanded film and video center, additional classroom and auditorium spaces, space for teacher workshops and the technology for using the Internet for education purposes. The sculpture garden is also to be enlarged.
After Auctions
Top officials at Sotheby's were busily working the phones after its sale of Impressionist and modern art on Monday night. This was a $123.8 million sale that included 37 works from the Reader's Digest Collection. The auction, which made less than its $140 million low estimate, saw many important works go unsold. But less than 24 hours after the sale, Sotheby's officials had privately found buyers for four major works.
''All the things that should have sold on Monday night that didn't have now been sold,'' said Diana D. Brooks, Sotheby's chief executive. And these did not go for fire-sale prices, she added. The sale catalogue's combined low estimates for the four works, however, was $21 million; the auction house said its private sales totaled $15 million.
Among the works that have found buyers are Brancusi's ''Muse'' (1918), a polished bronze head that was sold by the Judith Rothschild Foundation; Bonnard's ''Still Life With Bottle'' (1942), from the estate of Wendell Cherry, the chairman of Humana, who died in 1991; Renoir's ''Woman in Blue'' (1877), from the Reader's Digest Collection, and Cezanne's ''Bridge and the Barge at Pontoise'' (1881).
Guggenheim Grows
The Guggenheim's collection continues to grow with both gifts and purchases. This week the museum announced two groups of acquisitions. Eight drawings by Robert Rauschenberg were acquired, partly through a gift, partly through purchase, from the artist's collection. The acquisition was a collaboration between the Guggenheim and the Albertina in Vienna, which obtained five drawings. All the drawings are from the 1950's and early 60's. Two years ago, the institutions mounted a joint show at the Guggenheim, ''From Durer to Rauschenberg.'' The Guggenheim brokered the deal for both institutions.
Drawings are one area that the Guggenheim wants to strengthen. Another is photography, and this week the museum announced that an anonymous donor had given it the Monroe Wheeler Collection of 531 works by the 20th-century photographer George Platt Lynes. The works have been valued at $1.75 million.
The Guggenheim founded its photography program in 1992 with a $5 million gift from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. The addition of the Lynes works gives a significant boost to its holdings of 20th-century photographs.
Mr. Wheeler, director of exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art from 1935-1965, was a friend of the Lynes family.
The collection includes portraits of cultural figures including W. H. Auden, Jean Cocteau, Thomas Mann, W. Somerset Maugham and Igor Stravinsky, as well as documentation of the New York City Ballet.
Photo: A detail from ''Untitled (Hotel Bilbao),'' by Robert Rauschenberg. (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum)
