Princeton Loses Wilmerding But Gets His Pop Art Collection

Photo by D. Applewhite

Thanks to the Art History Newsletter, I just learned that John Wilmerding (above) this summer is leaving Princeton, where he is professor of American art. At his May 4 retirement dinner, he revealed that he is also giving Princeton nearly 50 works from his Pop art collection, now on display (to Aug. 12) at the university's art museum (which had previously described it as an anonymous promised gift). It includes paintings, sculptures and works on paper by such artists as Indiana, Katz, Lichtenstein and Wesselmann.

In 2004, Wilmerding announced that he was donating 51 19th-century American works to Washington's National Gallery, where he had been curator of American art, senior curator and deputy director. He is now a member of its board of trustees.

"John has been characteristically modest about his activities as a collector," said Earl Powell III, director of the National Gallery, at the time of the announcement.

Perhaps this "modesty" had something to do with not wanting to invite questions such as the one raised by the Art History Newsletter in connection with Wilmerding's latest gift:

Has anyone written about the phenomenon of art scholars and curators who also collect?

Actually, the Association of Art Museum Directors has---in its Professional Practices guidelines, which Wilmerding has presumably followed:

No private collecting by the director [or] curators...can by permitted if such activity conflicts in any way with the collecting interests of the museum. The museum must have the opportunity to acquire for its own collection any work of art offered to the director or any member of the museum staff directly or indirectly involved with the museum's collecting program.

Throwing off the professorial yoke may free Wilmerding to devote more time to another of his many activities---helping to form the collection of Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, to be housed in her Crystal Bridges museum, which is scheduled to open in 2009 in Bentonville, Arkansas.

According to Robert Workman, executive director of that museum:

Dr. Wilmerding continues as an advisor to Crystal Bridges, as we work to refine the Museum's permanent collection.