Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Artworks

Keep The Pre-Raphaelite, Sell Contemporary Art, Expert Says

While inveighing against the Delaware Art Museum’s planned deacccession of William Holman Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil at Christie’s in London next month,  Pre-Raphaelite expert Mark Samuels Lasner (below) brought up a very touchy subject: why not sell undistingished contemporary artworks instead?

mark-samuels-lasnerLasner, who according to USA Today is “a senior research fellow at the University of Delaware Library and an expert on Victorian literature and art,” called the planned sale “sacrilege.”

“Isabella and the Pot of Basil is “an extraordinarily significant painting,” said Lasner, who has amassed a 9,000-piece collection of Victorian books, manuscripts and letters that has been exhibited worldwide.

In 2009, Lasner helped organize the “Useful and Beautiful” international conference and related exhibitions, which highlighted Delaware’s Pre-Raphaelite treasures. For the last 10 years, he has helped fund an annual Pre-Raphaelite student fellowship under a joint program between UD Library and the museum.

But Lasner said he is weighing no longer supporting the museum – either through fellowship funding or a financial bequest – in light of the Hunt sale….

The Pre-Raphaelite collection is the museum’s “core, the reason for the institution’s very existence,” along with American illustration, Lasner wrote.

The Lasner proposed an alternative — selling “post-1950 contemporary art holdings, ‘most of which are undistinguished.’ ”

Most museum directors I’ve discussed this with won’t go there. Some would like to sell contemporary art works they feel will not stand the test of time. But there are two problems: they don’t want to offend living artists — not only the ones whose works would be sold, but also others who might take offense at the practice. Second, they’re afraid that the works aren’t worth much — and that their sale would be a signal of an artist’s insignificance, depressing prices even more.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the American Printing History Association, Chesapeake Chapter

The Word Is Out From Delaware Art Museum

The first painting that Delaware Art Museum trustees have chosen to deaccession is not, as many expected, Winslow Homer’s Milking Time. Rather, they’ve chosen a pre-Raphaelite painting by William Holman Hunt, Isabella and the Pot of Basil. 

l_isabella-and-the-potChristie’s has placed it in its June 17 London sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art. But the catalogue is not yet online and the estimate has not been disclosed.

Going against traditional museum ethics rules — and some say without exploring all other options — the museum said in March that it needed to sell as many as four paintings to raise $30 million, some of which would be used to pay down debt racked up in its recent expansion. The rest would go into its skimpy endowment.

The Homer disappeared from both the museum’s walls and its website, leading many to suspect it was on the block. The painting might raise close to $30 million, according to some experts.

But Newsworks, which is WHYY in Philadelphia, now says otherwise — citing the Hunt. It says “The painting was originally purchased by the museum in 1947 using general art acquisition funds.” It appears, from the museum’s website, to be the only Hunt in the collection.

I could argue this either way, alas. While the Homer is likely to fetch much more than this, and therefore require fewer paintings to leave the collection, I think it’s a better painting than the Hunt and ought to be kept. On the other hand, Delaware has a fine collection of pre-Raphaelite paintings, and I believe that museums should aim for and maintain strength in specific areas to differentiate themselves from other museums.

Which brings me back to square one: I don’t think all financial avenues have been explored.

 

174 LACMA Donors = $4.1 Million + 10 Varied Acquisitions

This past weekend, collectors associated with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art set a record at their 29th annual Collectors Committee fundraiser — contributing more than $4.1 million and deciding to buy 10 quite diverse works of art. Among the artworks: Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres’ Odalisque (below right); contemporary works by Roni Horn, Chinese artist Feng Mengbo and Iranian artist Mitra Tabrizian; an 18th-century Virgin of Guadalupe by Antonio de Torres; a pair of 9th century Japanese lions (below left) and a print – Taureau et Picador, from 1952 – by Picasso.

LACMA-IngresOdalisqueThis is one kind of museum participation that I quite like. In fact, I know of a few variations — the men do in on their own at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in an annual event called “One Great Night in November” — and it would fun to have a competition among the major museums each year. Which one could raise the most money for purchases in one event? 

In LA, the collectors bought each of the nine pieces proposed by curators, and at the outset of the evening, director Michael Govan announced that one trustee, Carole Bayer Sager, had purchased Helen Pashgian: Light Invisible, a monumental piece now on view that consists of “twelve two-part columns framed out of molded acrylic.” It’s an immersive experience, one that changes as viewers walk around, past and through the forms. 

To be a member of the Collectors Committee at LACMA, one must contribute at least $15,000, or $30,000 for Benefactor Level membership, or $60,000 for Angel Level membership.  “All membership money [goes] directly to a pooled fund that gives Collectors Committee members the privilege of helping make acquisitions for the museum,” the museum explains on its website. And this year, the press release for the weekend’s results said that “87 couples joined Collectors Committee 2014, including 23 new members. ” That is impressive.

LACMA-9thCJapaneseLionsThe release adds: “Throughout its 29-year history, this event has made 202 acquisitions through donations totaling more than $32 million.”

In LA, the event goes on for more than 24 hours. It begins on Friday evening, “with exclusive dinners for Collectors Committee members in the homes of seven LACMA trustees, each prepared by celebrity chefs and paired with wines presented by renowned California vintners.”  (Can’t resist: the dinners, not the trustees, are prepared by chefs.)

Then, “On Saturday morning, LACMA curators presented artworks proposed for acquisition; at the annual Collectors Committee Gala on Saturday night, members enjoyed a dinner prepared by chef Joachim Splichal (Patina Group) and voted on which artworks to acquire.” Details in the release — as some works were simply purchased outright by trustees, just as Sager had.

Here’s a list of acquisitions with images. Nice.

Can You Discern What Is A Caravaggio And What Isn’t?

FortuneTellerIf experts can’t agree, I probably can’t tell (though I might have an opinion). Nonetheless, in this age of crowd-sourcing virtually everything that can be crowd-sourced, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is asking its visitors to answer that question.

Since Apr. 12, the museum has presented a small exhibit of four paintings by the artist in Visiting Masterpieces: Caravaggio and Connoisseurship. Two, Fortune Teller (c 1594–95) and Fra Antonio Martelli, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Malta (c 1608), are accepted as by the master — though as the museum says they once were not. Experts are divided, however, on the other two – Maffeo Barberini (c 1596) and Saint Francis in Meditation (c 1595).

So, the MFA says, it invites visitors to “employ the analytical thinking of experts and decide for themselves: which could be true Caravaggios? Visitors are encouraged to tweet their opinions using the hashtag #TrueCaravaggio and follow @mfaboston for conversation about the paintings.” I found little on Twitter last night, just these tweets:

And a few tweets by others.  But then again, I’m not on Twitter and rarely go there, so perhaps I missed some. But I like this exhibit — more details about it are here — for a couple of reasons, mainly the focus on connoisseurship and the small size, which invites interested people to linger. To me, the votes — or discussions on Twitter — are just add-ons. If they create more excitement, so be it. I hope there’s something in the galleries, though, to show the actual split in professional opinion — and precisely why. I’d also like to know what the MFA’s paintings curators think.

Photo Credit: The Fortune Teller, Courtesy of the Capitoline Museums via the MFA

Is That A Rembrandt In The Closet? Yes.

More discoveries in the storeroom, and this time it’s a Rembrandt. Yes, the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha has been told that a painting in its collection for 72 years, acquired as a Rembrandt but downgraded to School of Rembrandt — and relegated to storage — is in fact by the master after all.

bilde2At least in the view of Rembrandt scholar Ernst van de Wetering, who says the work is “Portrait of Dirck van Os.” No date was given in the Omaha World-Herald, which published the news today. Here’s the backstory:

In 1942 the museum purchased “Portrait of Dirck van Os” from a private collection, believing it to be a true Rembrandt. The work hung beside Rembrandt’s name for 45 years — until a major initiative to catalog and authenticate the world’s known Rembrandt paintings led to its reclassification….

Joslyn continued to display “Portrait of Dirck van Os” for 12 years under its revised attribution before placing it in storage during a museum renovation.

The painting might still be there if not for a visit in 2010 from van de Wetering. Two years later he asked Joslyn to send the piece to Amsterdam for further analysis and conservation. Van de Wetering worked with Martin Bijl, former head of restoration at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, to bring the painting as close as possible to its original condition.

In addition to repair work, Bijl removed embellishments believed to have been made after the original painting was completed, including lace along van Os’ collar and a chain with a cross hanging from his neck.

For some reason, the Joslyn did not release a new photograph of the restored portrait, but the black-and-white pre-restoration picture I’ve posted here.

This story joins many other storeroom discovery stories I’ve written about here.