Judith H. Dobrzynski

Sotheby’s Necessary But Bad Bet

When Sotheby’s took to the press release in early September, announcing that it “won” the consignment to sell the estate of Alfred A. Taubman–the auctioneer’s one-time owner–it raised a lot of questions. While Christie’s competed for the consignment, Sotheby’s had to win–not doing so would have cost it a lot of face. But in the end, losing it may have proved to be the prudent thing to do–considering that Sotheby’s provided a universal guarantee of $500 million.

Even then, dealers and other experts I spoke with were skeptical; now that highlights have been shown in Hong Kong and London and that a vast amount (if not all, I’m not clear on that point) is on view in New York, I think the skeptics have a point.

I went to look yesterday and saw little that convinced me the sales will reach $500 million. That means that Sotheby’s will be stuck with a lot of unsold art.

Of course there are some good pieces–to name a few:

Modigliani’sÂ Portrait de Paulette Jourdain, estimated at $25- to 30 million
Degas’ Danseuses en blanc,Â estimated at $18 million to $25 million, plus two other Degas pastels (one good at $15- to $20 million, one less so)
Two Rothkos, one small and colorful ($20- to $30 million); the other large and more somber ($20- to $30 million)
Frank Stella’s Delaware Crossing, $8- to $12 million
A couple Picassos, Giacomettis, a Matisse ($12- to $18 million)
Heade’s The Great Florida Sunset, $7 to $10 million (above left)
At least two dozen Schiele works on paper
A so-so deKooning and Jasper Johns
Several Burchfields and three (or four?) Homers, all perfectly fine but not great; a beautiful Milton Avery, but then others by him, too

And on and on: and that’s the trouble: can Sotheby’s get top-dollar for all the main lots? To my eyes (and others I chatted with), there are very few masterpieces, no matter what Sotheby’ says. Even so, can it then sell the bulk of the rest? There are many mediocre works and some things I’d categorize as worse than that.

I do not know the high-low estimates for the entire estate–Sotheby’s would only provide the $500 million figure–but I think knowing it will be revealing.

Meantime, I’ve posted some pix below from the exhibition, by (in descending order), Avery, Monet, Thiebaud, Vuillard, Carlsen and, finally, von Max.

Defending Melissa Chiu…UPDATED

When the Hirshhorn Museum, which has been led for the last year by Melissa Chiu, late of the Asia Society Museum, announced that its 40th anniversary gala would be held in New York, not in Washington, D.C.,Â I too raised my eyebrows. That is a slap in the face to the hometown crowd, I thought.Â I have revised my thinking.

Immediately after the announcement, Chiu was blasted in the local papers. Said the Washington Post:

The decision to hold the Hirshhornâ€™s 40th-anniversary gala in New York is deeply troubling and raises concern about where the museumâ€™s new director, Melissa Chiu, is taking the organization…it is a snub, and a distressing indication that she doesnâ€™t understand the purpose, the history or the identity of the museum she now leads….

[President]Â Johnson helped facilitate the gift of Joseph Hirshhornâ€™s collection to the Smithsonian, telling an adviser: â€œI want the American people to see this stuff.â€ Placing it in Washington, which was a tourist magnet but far from a cultural capital in the 1960s, was part of that vision.

And throughout its 40-year history, the Hirshhorn has played an essential role in elevating the cultural conversation in the nationâ€™s capital.

The article conceded that Chiu had to go where the money was–New York, etc. And in herÂ response, according to Washington City Paper, she offer no apology but rather context:

We started our 40th celebration last October in Washington with the opening of our newly renovated third floor for our permanent collection and an opening celebration dinner.

I still thought it was a blunder. Then, on Tuesday, came an announcement that changed my mind. The press release said:

The Smithsonianâ€™s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden announced today that it has received a substantial gift of $2 millionâ€”the single largest individual donor gift in the museumâ€™s historyâ€”from Joleen Julis, who joined the board of trustees in October 2014, and her husband, Mitch Julis.

I applaud the Julises. But seriously, the largest-ever individual gift is $2 million, 40 years on into the museum’s history?

The Hirshhorn’s annual budget, including funds allocated by the Smithsonian, is about $20 million. The museum cares for about 12,000 objects, offers many special exhibitions and public programs, and is open daily (except Christmas). Joleen Julis is one of 12 new trustees that Chiu recruited to the Hirshhorn board.

Washington area residents need to be jarred–especially those who say they care about contemporary art, those who are offended by Chiu’s call on the location benefit.

If they don’t like it, they should step up to the plate and give.

UPDATE: AS of Oct. 28, the Hirshhorn has said this gala in NYC has raised more than $1.55 million–a record for the museum. Read the press release here.

Becoming An Art Convert In Spain–And Why

Earlier this year, I made an art pilgrimage to Valladolid,Â the home of Spain’s National Museum of Sculpture. So much Spanish Renaissance and Baroque sculpture resides and stays in Spain, sometimes because it can’t leave and sometimes because there is no demand to borrow it, and I had felt remiss in not having seen enough Spanish Old Master Sculpture.

I particularly wantedÂ to see JuanÂ de Juni’s TheÂ Burial of Christ, which I had proposed for theÂ Masterpiece column that runs every Saturday inÂ The Wall Street Journal. It was an easy sell. And my piece, headlined A Tableau Animated by Grief, ran this past weekend.

But among the public, I think Spanish Renaissance and Baroque art is a hard sell. It’s too religious, too unflinching for these secular times, some say. I didn’t like all the blood either. But, as I wrote in the Masterpiece column, I am now a convert. Just take a look at what Juni’s ensemble, sixÂ figures surrounding the dead Christ (detail above), looks like. It is spectacular. (You can see two additional close-ups here.)

The museum in Valladolid was a real treat because it tells a long and beautiful story, and–best of all–it tells it in a way that allows comparison among artists. You can easily contrast Juni (c. 1507â€“1577) with the other major sculptor of this era,Â Alonso Berruguete (1488â€“1561). Berrugete is represented there by a massive, multi-section altarpiece, one fragment of which I have posted here at right.

As it turned out, the WSJ had already published a Masterpiece column on a sculpture called The Sacrifice of Isaac in 2014. You can read that article and see the piece here.

But that was all right with me. In Valladolid, I realized that I had chosen the right guy. While I was there, I spoke with the museum’s subdirector,Â Manuel Arias MartÃnez, about the two. He had pointed out their similarities and their differences.Â Berruguete, he said, was a painter as well as a sculptor and had worked quickly in a refined, elegant Mannerist style. Juni, purely a sculptor, slowly and carefully carved his pieces in a more detailed, more realistic style.

Then he said the best line:Â â€œBerrugueteâ€™s sculptures are to see. Juniâ€™s are to pray.â€ Trueâ€”overallâ€”but I think Juniâ€™s The Burial of Christ surely does double duty.

At the museum, Berruguete’s art takes up a long gallery and more on the ground floor. Upstairs, after a couple of small galleries, Juni’s sits at the end of a long, beautifully carved set of choir stalls. Here’s what that looks like:

Juni had carved a similar version of the burial for the Segovia cathedral, so naturally I also went there to see what that looked like. For one, it has some of the outer structure of the sculpture that, in Valladolid, has been lost. It’s also, obviously, more of a relief than a sculpture.

And just for your comparison, here are two more entombment scenes that I saw in Spain–nice but not Juni.

You Can Help Stop Cultural Destruction: Chartres Chapter

Universally recognized as a masterpiece of cultural heritage–inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1979–the Cathedral of Our Lady in Chartres is under attack by its would-be restorers. Now maybe you can help stop the dreadful makeover that has been underway for a while.

I wrote about this issue, which was ignited by Martin Filler, last December (see Restoration Scandal at Chartres Cathedral), and today I received an email from a self-described “Physics PhD student at the University of Arizona” named Stefan Evans. Evans, who is studyingÂ physics and art history, wrote:

When I saw a photo of Chartres Cathedral a few years ago, an interest in Gothic architecture sparked inside of me; it has since grown into a passion of mine. I read your article on the cathedral’s restoration and was heartbroken when I visited Chartres this summer.Â Since then I’ve been working on a petition to halt the irresponsible restoration.

He is not alone. As you will remember, Chartres has been praised by many, including Kenneth Clark, who wrote: “Chartres is the epitome of the first great awakening in European civilisation. It is also the bridge between Romanesque and Gothis, between the world of Abelard and the world of St. Thomas Aquinas, the world of restless curiosity and the world of system and order.”

Co-sponsored by art historians, and directed at French officials, you can sign the petition here. It says, in part:

Most alarming is the addition of paint and filling material on walls and columns: 800-year-old windows and floors are in the same setting as surfaces made to appear like they were built yesterday â€“ a shocking contrast. Articles 3 and 6 of the 1964 Venice Charter emphasize historical evidence being as important as the work of art itself, and that “No new construction, demolition or modification which would alter the relations of mass and colour must be allowed”. http://www.icomos.org/charters/venice_e.pdf

The 1964 Charter of Venice is violated not only by the addition of paint and filling material that are not historically accurate, but also by inconsistencies between the cathedral’s history and the attempt to restore its original appearance. In addition to several window replacements in the 14th and 18th centuries, the north tower was constructed in a different style in the 16th century, followed by the choir screen which took over 200 years to complete. The current restoration makes these historical differences unperceivable.

The petition is just getting started, and it may have no impact. But remember that a Change.org petition about the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin help persuade the Germans to leave their Old Master there, in full view, instead of contracting the number on exhibition. That, too, was pushed by Americans.

Meantime, you may be interested in this article about art historians who are using lasers to “unlock mysteries of Gothic cathedrals.” Â That’s where I grabbed the picture above.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of National Geographic

A Good Show Spoiled

With the weather in New York still fine–and warmish–on Saturday, I ventured up to the New York Botanical Garden for FRIDA: Art, Garden, Life, one of the Garden’s hybrid exhibitions that combines plants and paintings. This one, much like the Garden’s 2012 exhibition titled Monet’s Garden, offers about a dozen works of art, exhibited in the library building. Many more specimens of the plants Kahlo grew at her home, Casa Azul, on the outskirts of Mexico City, are there in the Garden’s Conservatory. The show went on view on May 16 and remains there until Nov. 1.

The art star of the show isÂ Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, painted in 1940, perhaps followed by her portrait of Luther Burbank and a couple of still lifes. The stars of the gardens are too many to mention. Another nice touch: a desk of Kahlo’s paints and brushes.

I like these exhibitions, in part because gardens attract a different, if overlapping, crowd than art museums. Plus, the exhibits are small enough in the art category not to threaten museums. The NYBG clearly has no cards to play in the sense of being able to lend paintings, so it borrowings depend on good will.

But the show was spoiled by, of all things, the stanchions. The Garden’s gallery has, in part, insets along the walls and the stanchions sit on the edge of the inset. I could not see the drawings in one inset. They were, say, three feet away. Drawings are meant to be viewed closely. Maybe others could see them (the galleries were, of course, dim), but I couldn’t. I simply moved on.

The NYBG is far from the only place that ruins art experiences with aggressive stanchioning. Many museums erect these barriers. Sometimes, at a special loan exhibition, you can identify the ones that insist on stanchions.

I’ve asked many museum directors and curators about this, and I’ve been told that formulate their own policies for stanchions.Â Some have said that insurance companies sometimes require them–which doesn’t make much sense, because then why don’t all museums have to use them?Â At the Met, I was told recently by a high-ranking official, whether or not to use stanchions is the call of the department head.

I can hear you saying, they’re for safety–to protect the art. But haven’t we seen people fall over the stanchions and into the art? With few exceptions, perhaps where the art work is so popular that crowds are unmanageable, I can understand their use. But I wish museums would think a little harder about the barriers to looking that they create. And banish them.

A few pictures of them, followed by more NYBG pictures from Kahlo.

I could keep going, but let’s go back to the NYBG:

« Previous Page