Denver Art Museum and Philip Anschutz go halfsies

I'm glad that the Denver Post's Kyle MacMillan dug into this story: What does it mean when the Denver Art Museum sells half of a painting it owns to a local collector? Is that 'deaccessioning?'

In case you missed it: Last week the Denver Art Museum half-acquired Thomas Eakins' Cowboy Singing [below] and two related drawings. Colorado businessman Philip Anschutz helped out with at least some of the $8-10 million DAM half-spent, and in return will own half of the 'new' Eakins (not so unusual) and half of a painting previously in DAM's collection, Charles Deas' Long Jakes, The Rocky Mountain Man.

The Deas, described by DAM on its website as "[t]he crown jewel in the institute's collection" and "the single most influential image in Rocky Mountain iconography" is now co-owned by DAM and Anschutz, each of whom will have physical possession of the painting for half of a year. (And check out the credit line on the Deas: DAM acquired it less than a decade ago. I wonder if all those folks are thrilled with this deal... The line is impossible to link to, so it's in the jump here.)

Nice job by MacMillan in jumping into all of this. But he frames the deal within the context of the art market and the alleged new difficulty of museo-acquisitions, which I think is precisely wrong. (After all, when has it ever been easy for a museum to buy an $8-10 million painting?)

The story isn't that the market is 'forcing' anyone to do anything; it is not. The story is not that museums have to do wildly creative things to acquire paintings; they don't. Quite simply: It is not an imperative that art museums participate in the art market beyond their means. If you can't afford a painting, you can't afford a painting. No one was pointing a banjo at the museum's head forcing it to half-deaccession its self-proclaimed "crown jewel," it simply chose to do so in order to half-acquire another painting.

DAM made a remarkably unusual deal that deserves continued scrutiny. Is the museum's collection now half-available to anyone who wants to buy half a painting? Is this an apporpriate use of collection as a fundraising lever? Also: Why isn't the Association of Art Museum Directors questioning this half-deaccessioning instead of excusing it? (I know, I know: AAMD exists to provide cover for the fudging of standards, not to uphold them.) And why did the super-reclusive Anschutz come out of the tombs for this deal, for this painting?