Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) Gives $10 Million to Boston Museum of Fine Areas

Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) announced on Monday that it would be giving $10 million to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, evenly split between cash and art, including a painting by Ellsworth Kelly.

After a $5 million gift from Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) as part of the Boston Museum of Fine Art’s capital campaign and this latest contribution, the Charlotte-based bank is now Boston MFA’s largest contributor.

Boston MFA’s Hunting Avenue Entrance Plaza will be called the “Bank of America Plaza on the Avenue of the Arts’’ in  recognition of BofA’s gift to the museum. The name will be chiseled into the granite plinths on the building, said MFA Director Malcolm Rogers.

Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) Massachusetts President Robert Gallery said that the gift would help make the museum more accessible, noting sponsorships of free admission programs for its account holders. The bank also contributed funds for a recent renovation of the building’s Huntington Avenue entrance.

Gallery commented to the Boston Globe, “So for the museum to choose to recognize us there, we’re quite honored. To me, it symbolizes opening those doors for the community at large.”

In 2007, State Street announced a $10 million gift, which was the largest single contribution for the museum at the time. MFA named its Fenway entrance after the bank. At the time, Citizens Bank, Liberty Mutual, and Merrill Lynch also gave $1 million or more to the MFA.

Bank of America Corporation is a bank holding company, and a financial holding company. The Company is a financial institution, serving individual consumers, small and middle market businesses, large corporations and governments with a range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. Through its banking subsidiaries (the Banks) and various nonbanking subsidiaries throughout the United States and in selected international markets, it provides a range of banking and nonbanking financial services and products through six business segments: Deposits, Global Card Services, Home Loans & Insurance, Global Banking, Global Markets, Global Wealth & Investment Management (GWIM), with the remaining operations recorded in All Other. On January 1, 2009, the Company completed the acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

Shares of Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) traded up 2.54% during mid-day trading on Monday.