Art appreciation: institutional leaders need to approach the prospect of selling art-related assets with open communication and careful study.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Picture this: Your college has been facing a cash-rich, cash-poor battle for decades, and the possibility of its doors dosing seems imminent. To halt the cycle, the board of directors turns to what its members think may be the best option for dealing with these financial ails--approving the sale of art in your school's collection. In real life, officials at Fisk University Fisk University, at Nashville, Tenn.; coeducational; founded 1865, opened 1866, and chartered 1867. It became a university in 1967. Fisk, long an outstanding African-American school, is open to all qualified students. (Tenn.) made that decision, involving two paintings from its Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Modern American and European Art, to aid its fiscal struggle. Named for Alfred Stieglitz, a photographer and husband of painter Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totti O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887—March 6,1986) was an American artist. She is typically associated with the American Southwest and particularly New Mexico where she settled late in life. O'Keeffe has been a major figure in American art since the 1920s. , the 101-piece modern art collection came to the historically black college in 1949 as a gift from O'Keeffe, with the pieces from her late spouse's estate. Fisk Fisk , James 1834-1872. American railroad financier and speculator who attempted in 1869 to corner the gold market with Jay Gould, leading to Black Friday, a day of nationwide financial panic. was one of six institutions--and one of only two collegiate ones--to receive a share of his work. The university's portion includes sculpture, prints, and photographs by 29 acclaimed American and European artists such as Stieglitz, Pablo Picasso, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841–December 3, 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of . The move to sell the art stirred up an over two-year legal tug of war tug of war n. pl. tugs of war 1. Games A contest of strength in which two teams tug on opposite ends of a rope, each trying to pull the other across a dividing line. 2. with the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum was opened in July 1997, eleven years after the death of the American artist, Georgia O’Keeffe. It is located at 217 Johnson Street in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. in Santa Fe Santa Fe, city, Argentina Santa Fe, city (1991 pop. 341,000), capital of Santa Fe prov., NE Argentina, a river port near the Paraná, with which it is connected by canal. , N.M., on the argument that O'Keeffe had requested the collection be kept together. In March, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. published reports, a judge ruled that Fisk broke the terms of O'Keeffe's donation by intending to sell the two paintings and because they weren't on display. One of these paintings is O'Keeffe's 1927 Radiator radiator, device used to heat an area surrounding it or to cool a fluid circulating within it. The familiar radiators of steam and hot water heating systems in buildings are misnamed, as they operate principally by convection, in which heat is transferred by air Building--Night, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , and the other is Painting No. 3, a 1913 work by Marsden Hartley Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 - September 2, 1943) was an American painter and poet in the early 20th century. Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine, USA. He began his art training at the Cleveland Art Institute after moving to Cleveland, Ohio in 1892. . The court's decision also banned the sale of the collection but indicated that the university should not lose possession for attempting to sell. An October deadline was set for Fisk officials to retrieve the artwork from storage (there because the Fisk gallery is in need of renovation, with funds from the intended sale to aid this) and put them on display. Fisk has since appealed the decision, claiming in part that the court's order to require continuous exhibiting of the works would result in collection deterioration. [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Donors often give collections to higher ed institutions with the intention that these pieces will become permanent gallery fixtures, be available for public viewing, and encourage academic study. Fisk and other financially shaken colleges recently have turned to these art assets as a solution to their troubles, but the decision to sell them for this reason has engendered an ethical and legal debate. Is it right to transform a rare masterpiece into a moneymaker? How important are the original donor's wishes in making these decisions? Does a decision to sell diminish the role art plays at the institution? These questions about institutional valuables are being debated well beyond the confines con·fine v. con·fined, con·fin·ing, con·fines v.tr. 1. To keep within bounds; restrict: Please confine your remarks to the issues at hand. See Synonyms at limit. of Fisk University. The Price of Selling Both the Association of College and University Museums and Galleries and the Association of Art Museum Directors The Association of Art Museum Directors is an organization of art museums in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. External links
When the money will go to fund other means such as supporting the parent institution's endowment, rather than enhancing the museum program, criticism can be sharp and quick. Some campus museum and gallery directors whose schools have dealt with the decision to sell have left their posts. Any sale of a work of art needs to be reinvested in the collection from which it came, period. And that has been violated in several instances in the last three or four years," states Lisa Tremper Hanover, ACUMG ACUMG Association of College and University Museums and Galleries president and director of the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College (Pa.). "What does that say about the institution? It says they don't value a teaching tool, which most works of art on campuses are, in fact." With many higher ed institutions being liberal arts liberal arts, term originally used to designate the arts or studies suited to freemen. It was applied in the Middle Ages to seven branches of learning, the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. oriented, and having art and art history components, Hanover adds that there are "very forward thinking" schools whose leaders see how the visual arts visual arts npl → artes fpl plásticas visual arts npl → arts mpl plastiques visual arts npl → not only fit within an academic department but can support a wide range of study. If an institution is proactive with its collection, she adds, "I bet more donors will come forward. They will see that the institution is a good steward of these tangible assets Tangible Asset An asset that has a physical form such as machinery, buildings and land. Notes: This is the opposite of an intangible asset such as a patent or trademark. Whether an asset is tangible or intangible isn't inherently good or bad. ." Jessica Nicoll, director and chief curator at Smith College (Mass.) Museum of Art, facilitated a related discussion after the lecture "Selling Out: Are College Art Museums Resources or Piggy Banks?" held at Smith in March. Nicoll warns, "There's a real danger that the collection could be looked at as an asset that could be liquidated DAMAGES, LIQUIDATED, contracts. When the parties to a contract stipulate for the payment of a certain sum, as a satisfaction fixed and agreed upon by them, for the not doing of certain things particularly mentioned in the agreement, the sum so fixed upon is called liquidated damages. (q.v. ." Still, she acknowledges that there are times when the financial realities of an institution may leave no other course. Higher ed officials may tend to view their campus cultural facilities as peripheral to their core mission, according to Ford Bell, president of the American Association of Museums The American Association of Museums (AAM) is a non-profit association that has been bringing museums together since its founding in 1906, helping to develop standards and best practices, gathering and sharing knowledge, and providing advocacy on issues of concern to the . Out of the some 3,000 AAM n. 1. A Dutch and German measure of liquids, varying in different cities, being at Amsterdam about 41 wine gallons, at Antwerp 36½, at Hamburg 38¼. institutional members, there are 353 members with a college or university as a parent. Under AAM guidelines, it's acceptable to de-accession a piece that doesn't fit with a collection's time period or movement--such as a Dutch painting with American Contemporary art--but the sale proceeds should go back into the collection. "Colleges and university museums and galleries are extremely important parts of the educational mission of these institutions, and for small colleges to have significant works of art in their collection is really a great feather in their cap," says Bell. Facing Challenges Fisk isn't the only institution facing criticism or opposition related to an art asset sale. In late 2006, trustees at Thomas Jefferson University It began as Jefferson Medical College in 1824. On July 1, 1969 the institution officially became Thomas Jefferson University. The university is made up of three colleges:
It is likely to contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change as the construction and/or completion of the museum approaches. in Bentonville, Ark., as a joint acquisition, for $68 million. The painting depicts Gross performing surgery for observing Jefferson Medical College students; it was given by alumni in 1878. In response, local groups fought to keep the painting, considered a piece of Philadelphia's cultural heritage, in the city with a fundraising drive to match against the sale offer. In January 2007, The Gross Clinic was co-purchased by the Philadelphia Museum of Art Philadelphia Museum of Art, established in 1875, chartered in 1876. When the city of Philadelphia planned to erect a building to house the Centennial Exposition of 1876, provision was made to keep the building permanently occupied; the Pennsylvania Museum and School and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Randolph College Randolph College is a private coeducational liberal arts college located in Lynchburg, Virginia. It was founded in 1891 as the woman's college Randolph-Macon Woman's College. It was re-named Randolph College on July 1, 2007, when it became coeducational. (Va.) has also been confronted with a court battle, over the auctioning of four oil-on-canvas paintings in its Maier Museum of Art. They are George Bellows' Men of the Docks, Edward Hicks' A Peaceable Kingdom A Peaceable Kingdom was a television drama aired by CBS as part of its 1989 Fall lineup. A Peaceable Kingdom starred Lindsay Wagner as the recently-hired managing director of the Los Angeles County Zoo, who was also recently widowed with three children. , Ernest Hennings' Through the Arroyo, and Rufino Tamayo's Troubador. A temporary injunction temporary injunction n. a court order prohibiting an action by a party to a lawsuit until there has been a trial or other court action. A temporary injunction differs from a "temporary restraining order" which is a short-term, stop-gap injunction issued pending a filed by a group of students, alumnae, art donors, and former employees who opposed the sale had delayed the paintings from being included in an auction at New York-based Christies in November 2007, but the college gained the legal right to sell the paintings this February when the plaintiffs failed to post the $1 million bond required to keep the injunction. The paintings, now in a Christies storage facility, are expected to raise at least $32 million, which would boost Randolph's $153 million endowment and lower its spending rate from the endowment. In March, the lawsuit was withdrawn. Randolph's financial concern is tied to attempts to maintain its heritage as a single-sex college. Formerly Randolph-Macon Woman's College Randolph-Macon Woman's College, at Lynchburg, Va.; United Methodist; for women; est. 1891, opened 1893. Until 1953 it had a shared administration with Randolph-Macon College at Ashland, Va. , it began offering more scholarships and a discounted tuition rate to maintain student enrollment. Randolph spokesperson Brenda Edson explains that officials had to spend more and more from the endowment to offset the lack of enrollment revenue. Officials have also had to cut budgets, staff, and entire academic departments. In December, Randolph's accrediting agency lifted a warning placed on the college in 2006, but the college must undergo a year of monitoring and will later face a full review. Emphasizing that the college has to lower its spending rate now, Edson estimates that the school's endowment needs to be infused with almost $50 million. The institution became co-ed in fall 2007 to help increase enrollment, and board members conducted an institutional assets study as part of a strategic plan. At first, a committee made up partly of alumnae with art backgrounds brainstormed with the board to come up with alternative solutions to selling art. For six more months, the board tried to arrange a partnership, but to no avail. The decision was made last October to sell the paintings. The Maier Museum houses Randolph's permanent collection, with more than 3,500 pieces, including paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs. The four paintings were chosen because they did not carry any restrictions and it was felt these were valuable enough that it would prevent having to add to the amount of artwork involved in the sale, Edson explains. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] During this time, several updates were sent via e-mail and in print to the campus community and alumni. In January, a white paper of commonly asked questions was distributed. "You communicate the best you can and you try to be understanding of where your constituents are coming from," says Edson. "But as a board you have to do what's best for an institution. That's the most important thing, for a board, keeping the future of your institution." Nicoll of Smith College acknowledges the financial pressures that shaped Randolph's decision, but as a director of an academic museum she believes it's "a sad moment" when a major painting like Bellows' Men of the Docks is put up for auction. "They would never have another like that available for their students." When to Reconsider Sometimes administrators determine a potential sale may not have enough merit to be pursued. Last year, officials at Hartwick College History Hartwick Seminary was founded in 1797 through the will of John Christopher Hartwick, a Lutheran minister from Germany, who led several mission congregations of early settlers along the Hudson River and the Mohawk River in what is now upstate New York. (N.Y.) decided not to go forward with de-accessioning part of the college's fine arts collection--after a Sotheby's appraisal the previous fall found the estimated amount was not as much as they had thought. Proceeds would have been placed in an endowment to support the museum's operations and programming. Pieces being considered for sale included some from the Louis van Ess collection, named for the rector of the local St. James' Episcopal Church Episcopal Church, Anglican church of the United States. Its separate existence as an American ecclesiastical body with its own episcopate began in 1789. Doctrine and Organization , housed in Hartwick's Yager Museum of Art and Culture. The collection includes more than 100 European pieces dating from the Italian Renaissance through the mid-19th century, and also American paintings from the early 20th century. The Yager Museum, established in the 1960s, is also home to a collection of Native American archeological materials from the late Willard E. Yager, an amateur archeologist, writer, and collector, which was bequeathed to Hartwick following his death in 1929. Over the years, the Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time museum began to receive more art donations, and the potential de-accession was to decide if some pieces weren't relevant to the college's mission. A memo informed the campus community about a potential sale, and President Richard P. Miller Jr. met with those grieved about the possibility to hear the news. "For some of my colleagues, it was terribly difficult to even think that the college was considering it," Miller re calls. "As a person responsible for the institution, I found it a subject that needed to be addressed and laid to rest once and for all." A museum advisory committee conducted a study and then made recommendations for improving museum operations, such as integrating museum activities with course curricula, encouraging more student involvement, and displaying the entire collection more frequently. "We have looked for ways to constrain con·strain tr.v. con·strained, con·strain·ing, con·strains 1. To compel by physical, moral, or circumstantial force; oblige: felt constrained to object. See Synonyms at force. 2. the museum's budget, so now it breaks even within the institution," says Miller. Art and the Bottom Line A gallery or museum director and a college or university president will naturally view the subject of selling institutional assets from their own perspectives. "I think the bottom line is for small private institutions like ours to be pretty conscious of what our mission is and whether our assets are being deployed to meet the mission," explains Miller. "I felt that if there was significant value here, we needed to consider whether converting these works into an asset that generated income would be better for the institution in meeting its mission." Bell of the American Association of Museums warns that IHEs have to consider the risks of what he calls the long-term effects of these sales, with colleges "losing a great art collection, which some of these smaller colleges are very lucky to have." He also cautions about another possible consequence: skeptical donors. With donor intent, the decision to unload To remove a program from memory or take a tape or disk out of its drive. an art asset today could "make some donors stop and think, 'Do I want to give this painting or statue to a university or college museum?'" Nicoll hopes that if administrators at Smith ever felt forced to consider selling the institution's major art holdings, they would manage that process very carefully, with concern about building "future trust among donors" to continue their support. When confronted with the decision to sell art, Nicoll says officials should be sure to involve their constituencies in a "very public conversation" about these challenges if there comes a point where it has to be understood and agreed that there may be no other choice. But Miller argues that each case has to be looked at individually. "It's a responsibility for presidents to make sure that all of the assets that make up the institution are being deployed to support the college's mission," he says. "Any college president needs to make a decision based on his or her circumstance, what the right approach is." For Your Consideration AUCTION HOUSES ADVISE HIGHER ED INSTITUTIONS ON ART collection appraisals for insurance reasons and for those considering public or private sales. When weighing the value--and fate--of art assets, Paul Provost PROVOST. A title given to the chief of some corporations or societies. In France, this title was formerly given to some presiding judges. The word is derived from the Latin praepositus. , director of trusts, estates, and appraisals for Christie's Americas, advises the following: * Research acquisition details. For donor gifts, obtain a copy of the deed and any other records, and note any restrictions. * Consult an attorney. Your institution's legal counsel can determine if the school is in a position to sell the items, as well as whether you need oversight from a government agency (such as a surrogate's court or the attorney general). * Be prepared to answer questions. It's inevitable--deciding to sell will mean addressing issues about the institution's mission. Consider the educational value of the art with respect to the institution's mission and determine how you will communicate a decision to sell to internal constituents and the broader community. * Conduct periodic appraisals. Knowing the current relative worth of a collection isn't just for sale potential, it aids in the overall management of the collection. Resources American Association of Museums, www.oom-us.org Association of Art Museum Directors, www.aamd.org Association of College and University Museums and Galleries, www.acumg.org Christie's, www.christies.com Sotheby's, www.sothebys.com |
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