Rose Lends to Philly’s Cézanne Show; More Brandeis Administration Disinformation

For another in the continuing series of exhibitions demonstrating why disposing of important works from the collection of Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum collection should be a non-starter, we now take you to Cézanne and Beyond at the Philadelphia Museum.

Below, on the left, is a Rose-owned painting in that show. On the right, the painting that hangs to its right:














Left: Jasper Johns, "Drawer," 1957, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University
Right: Paul Cézanne, "Curtain, Jug and Compotier," 1893-4, Private Collection, Chicago

Johns takes a disembodied drawer (which could be an allusion to Cézanne's tables with drawers, like the one on the right) and he does something else with it---camouflages it with the same scumbled, mottled application of paint that forms the background of this and many other Cézanne still lifes. Like the other artists in the show, Johns purloined talismans from the master and made them completely his own.

In the past few months, we've seen a mini-display of important Rose loans, including here and here. These works should remain in the public domain, at the institution that the donors intended to benefit.

Meanwhile, Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz, caught in an astonishing series of flip-flops, is now resorting to the time-honored blame-the-media gambit. There is only word for his disinformation campaign---"chutzpah."

In an e-mail sent Thursday to Cousin Debby and other Brandeis alums, Reinharz asserted:

Unfortunately, there has been a great deal of misinformation circulating in the media regarding the Rose....The Rose is NOT going to close. [It was Reinharz, not the  ink-stained wretches, who first disseminated this supposed "misinformation." The administration's initial statement explicitly announced "the decision to close the museum"]....

We are pleased to share the news that a donor recently stepped forward to help fund the continued operations of the museum. [The museum itself, unlike the university, was not in financial trouble in the first place, although it may be, now that the administration has alienated its support base. Who IS the new Mystery Donor, we all wonder.]

The Board of Trustees voted to authorize Brandeis to sell a limited number of pieces in the collection---if the need arises in the future. Nothing will be sold into the currently depressed art market. [This is the first time I've heard Reinharz say unequivocally that the university intends to wait out the price slump. By the time the art market recovers, the overall economy and university's financial situation may well have improved too.]

Notwithstanding these assertions, as the Rose's own renegade website still defiantly states:

The decision to close the Rose and sell art work has not changed. It's only been semantically modified.

The intention, as stated by Reinharz's latest missive, is to repurpose the museum "as a teaching and exhibition gallery." This is consistent with another important campus-wide initiative---to encourage staff and faculty to "join Weight Watchers on campus." It appears that the museum may likewise slim down.

But some of the Rose's fat-wallet donors may be beefing up in a different way. My friendly source in the Rose Family, Fred Hoppin' Mad Hopengarten, informs me that his clan (better termed "mishpocheh") is planning a conclave next week to discuss the situation and their possible response.

John Hechinger of the Wall Street Journal reports:

Hopengarten...said he was canvassing relatives to pursue legal options to oppose the Brandeis plan. Mr. [Jerry] Fineberg [a former Rose chairman, who gave $2 million for the museum's new wing] said he is consulting a lawyer and plans to ask for his big donation back and "give it to a real museum."

Nevertheless, I must concede that Reinharz is onto something. In his e-mail, he said this about the future:

We envision a day when the Rose will host additional events, welcome more visitors from both on and off campus, and exhibit student and faculty art alongside some of the collection's notable works.

The Elephant in the Rose is that, until the current crisis, relatively few students, faculty and members of the local community actually went there---a failing discussed in this article by Maxwell Price in a student newspaper, the Brandeis Hoot.

If there's any constructive lesson that college and university museum directors around the country can take away from this sorry saga, it's that they must reach out, early and often, to the entire community, on and off campus, making sure that everyone understands and experiences the great resource that their institutions and collections can be for a rich educational and cultural life.

A university museum's constituency shouldn't consist merely of art and art-history specialists.

[More CultureGrrl coverage of the Rose: here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.]