Watching a museum die is painful. This case, while small, raises a side question, too — about a museum’s place in an award-winning city with aspirations for attracting business.
When we last left the Fayetteville, NC, Museum of Art, it had closed and was seeking advice from proven community leaders on a reorganization. The museum had already torn up plans for a $15 million expansion, drafted in 2007, when times were different.
The reorganization has now, it seems, been dismissed, and the museum is selling its permanent collection.
According to the Charlotte Observer, about 300 people were invited to a private sale of about 50 works held last Thursday at Methodist University. Per the article:
“We’re doing what we can to move forward with the predicament we have, and I think this is a good opportunity for these pictures to stay in Fayetteville,” said Mac Healy, president of the museum’s board of trustees. “The board has made the commitment from Day One to retire our debt, and this is a step toward that.”
That sale was tepid. Of 22 works offered in a live auction, just six sold — bringing a total of $13,000, according to Auction Central News. The art on offer included paintings, prints and drawings by North Carolina artists Maud Gatewood (that’s a silkscreen by her in the photo, held by Silvana Foti, a professor at Methodist U), Herb Jackson, Claude Howell and Joe Cox, plus several local artists. The other 28 works were offered in a silent auction, but I haven’t found any reports of what they fetched. Several hundred other, lesser works will be sold by a “fine arts company in Charlotte,” according to ACN. With all the money going to pay off debt, there’s little hope for a new museum there in the future.
When I looked up the population of Fayetteville — not small, 200,000 — I was surprised to find out that, according to Wikipedia, it has won the “prestigious All-American City Award from the National Civic League three times,” in 1985, 2001 and 2011. The award, given to just 10 cities a year, helps them attract and retain employers.
It might be a little harsh to say the Fayetteville, given the art museum fiasco, doesn’t deserve an award. But I don’t think it’s too harsh to suggest that the NCL might want to consider the health of the arts sector in their award judgments. Aren’t we all convinced that art enhances creativity?
How to get the NCL to agree? Perhaps the American Association of Museums or Americans for the Arts might add that to their already admittedly long lists of advocacy items.
Photo Credit: Cindy Burnham, Courtesy of the Charlotte Observer