New York Public Library Sells Its Washington (See PR Gripe #2)

On Nov. 20, I e-mailed the New York Public Library's incoming vice president for communications and marketing, Anthony Calnek (erstwhile of the Guggenheim), asking him to get me the answers to two questions:

What happened to the works that [the Library] consigned to Sotheby's but that failed to sell?

To what use have they actually put the proceeds of the art sales?

Yesterday, Anthony e-mailed me the answer to the second question. Today, Carol Vogel in the NY Times partially answered the first.

The resolution---the purchase by Michael and Judy Steinhardt of Gilbert Stuart's Munro-Lenox portrait of our first President, appears to be as good as could be hoped, since the Steinhardts have indicated that they may either lend it or give it to an American museum.

I had asked Anthony for an update, because I felt remiss in not following up on my big NYPL story that appeared more than a year ago in the Wall Street Journal: A Betrayal of Trust: At the New York Public Library, It's Sell Now, Raise Money Later. Here's a previously untold part of that story: It was only by initiating and pursuing a formal freedom-of-information request for documents filed by Library with the New York Attorney General's office that I finally got access to sensitive documents about these sales. Both the Library and the AG had initially argued that this material was "confidential."

But it's a new day, with a new PR person who declares that he has a "policy of transparency." Here's Anthony's reply to my question about the use of the proceeds:

All proceeds from the art sales (almost $53 million in total) have been placed in an endowment strictly for the purpose of acquisitions for the Research Libraries. Although the Library isn't bound by the standards of the AAMD in the use of the deaccessioning proceeds, it has nonetheless adopted them.

The fund has already been put to great use, allowing us to purchase two significant archives (William Burroughs and Meredith Monk), with another major archive acquisition to be finalized and announced in January.

In case you were wondering, Gripe #2 on my infamous list of 10 Things I Don't Like About Art-PR People is, "The NY Times Gets It First, Other Reporters Second." Anthony says that he had lost all his e-mails en route between the two institutions, and had forgotten about my first question. Whatever. I'm resigned to the fact that I shall always be chopped liver to Carol's paté.

By the way, Carol, in your first paragraph, you need to change the date of the NYPL sale at Sotheby's (or at least do so in the online version): It took place in November 2005, not November 2004.