BlogBack: Daniel Grant on the Eakins Controversy

My concern about the Association of Art Museum Directors' deaccession policy is that it reflects a distaste for private ownership of art, as though individual collectors represent a menace to high culture. It is an onerous policy that discourages museums from ridding themselves of objects that may be duplicative or for which they have no use.

How many Renoirs must the Metropolitan Museum have in storage that will never be put on display in its galleries? If one private collector puts one of these lesser Renoirs on his or her living room wall, far more people would gain enjoyment from it.

Back in the 1980s, when the Japanese were heavily involved in the purchase of Impressionist paintings, there was great fear of our losing our cultural heritage to them. Today's newly rich buyers from China, Russia, India and the Middle East seem to be buying their own national artists more than ours. So now our fears have moved away from foreigners to our own wealthy collectors---Alice Walton among them.