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Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

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Disturbing: More News About the Corcoran

JaymeMcLellanAfter I wrote my previous post about the recent details of the deal dismantling the Corcoran Gallery of Art, I received more disturbing news from Jayme McLellan,  of Save the Corcoran, and a former Corcoran College of Art and Design professor. They need no introduction — I’ll just list them, verbatim. McLellan (at right) says:

  • All staff, including curatorial, except faculty were given 90 day notices on Monday.
  • As of Aug. 16th, the Corcoran will have no employees but programming runs until Oct.
  • Lauren Garcia, (Corcoran COO and Harry Hopper’s next door neighbor  – hired w/no prior museum experience) told staff not to put anything negative on social media because they were being watched. “Stay professional, we are watching you and you might not get hired by GW or NGA if you are negative.” ….
  • NGA will not issue contracts to the curatorial staff until Cy Pres [court approval] happens.
  • And David Julyan, Corcoran Chief Counsel, gets paid by the hour.

I did not attempt to verify this with the Corcoran staff. In the past, Save the Corcoran had pretty good information.

Corcoran

Griswold’s Toughest Task As Cleveland’s New Director

I’ve been so busy the last few days, and today I was completely away from my computer, and so I’ve missed commenting on several art-world development — like the Corcoran deal — and now the announcement this morning that the Cleveland Museum of Art had chosen William Griswold, current head of the Morgan Library and Museum,* as its new director.

WGriswold

Griswold is an excellent choice in many ways (Perhaps with advice, he made his own video already — see it here), not least because he really wants the job. Though he has done well at the Morgan, he confided to me months ago that he missed being in a general museum. Cleveland is also a good fit because Griswold is a scholar with an affinity for Cleveland’s smallish but gem-like collection.

He can also be a soothing presence — he’s no bull in a China shop — and Cleveland, after the disruptive tenure and departure of David Franklin (now, reportedly back in Canada, from whence he came), who was fired last fall, needs someone to unite people in the museum. That will be his first, or maybe second, priority.

The other, tougher priority is fund-raising, an issue I have not yet seen raised in any of the press coverage of the announcement (though, naturally, I have not read it all).

Cleveland’s expansion, with a new Rafael Vinoly wing, cost some $350 million and the museum has not raised all the money, In January, when I provided an update on the museum here, I called the gap “substantial.” No one objected. I believe the gap is in the neighborhood of $50 million, but some of that may have been raised by now. Equally important, though, I have heard that Cleveland — i.e., the city’s donors — is tapped out. The museum has gone to all the big donors not once, but twice, and still hasn’t come up with all it needs.

Franklin had gotten permission to dip into its acquisition endowment funds — though he also promised me that would not be necessary, that he would raise the money. He did not.

Griswold raised money for the Morgan; let’s hope he can do it in Cleveland.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Morgan

 

The Deathbed Deal With Cornelius Gurlitt

The Wall Street Journal published an excellent narrative of Cornelius Gurlitt’s final days the other day. You can read it here, assuming it is not behind the paywall. But it may, and so I thought I’d relate a few key paragraphs of the story, by Mary Lane and Bertrand Benoit. It documented, as I suspected, Gurlitt’s revenge on Germany.

CGurlittThe article begins:

Cornelius Gurlitt [at left], 81 years old and his heart faltering, in early January called a notary to his hospital bed in southern Germany, determined to write a last will and testament inspired by love and hate.

Mr. Gurlitt—stung by the local government’s seizure of the cache of priceless art that he called his life’s only love and by the world-wide furor over the fact that much of it was snatched from Jews by the Nazis—had two desires: to burnish his family name by giving the trove to a museum and to send it out of Germany….

…Mr. Gurlitt’s decision, people close to him say, reflected in part his alienation from his country and anger at the Bavarian officials who confiscated his collection. At first, he “felt like a victim of Bavaria,” a person close to the collector says. But, as he began “growing paler by the day, he wanted to keep his father’s name from being tarnished and give back the Jewish art.” …

…The government deal, involving Bavarian and national agencies, happened partly because of Mr. Gurlitt’s hope he would see the art again before his death—a wish that went unfulfilled….

Apparently, Germany proposed the donation idea:

In December, a government official involved in the case sat down with Mr. Gurlitt for what the official described as a serene, deeply personal one-on-one conversation….this person suggested Mr. Gurlitt could transfer his collection to a foundation—preferably in Germany—that would restore stolen art to its rightful owners in line with the Washington Principles and show the rest in a state-financed museum. He seemed interested.

A few weeks later, Mr. Gurlitt took the idea but used it to snub his native land.

Gurlitt had only the slightest connection to the Bern museum to which he willed his treasures:

…In 1990, he sold an unidentified artwork for $48,757 via the Kornfeld auction house in Bern and told a lawyer earlier this year that Eberhard Kornfeld, the auction house’s owner, remained an acquaintance. Mr. Kornfeld is a significant patron of the museum. …

2013 became 2014 and:

In February, [Christoph] Edel [Gurlitt’s court-appointed guardian] announced he had removed 60 fresh artworks, whose existence was hitherto unknown, from Mr. Gurlitt’s second home in Salzburg, Austria, and put them into storage. These included a Claude Monet painting that experts valued at $12 million and that had been presumed lost.

…Mr. Gurlitt at the intensive-care unit. Mr. Gurlitt, growing impatient to finalize the talks, instructed his guardian to end [Hannes] Hartung’s [a criminal lawyer who wanted the painting sold, with proceeds going to Gurlitt] contract, which Mr. Edel did on March 27…Mr. Hartung’s dismissal crippled parallel negotiations he had been conducting with French and American heirs to a Matisse painting in the trove, valued at $20 million, [but] it propelled the talks with the government.

…The agreement in which Mr. Gurlitt would pledge to return all stolen works was finalized between the lawyers and the government the first week of April. Mr. Gurlitt asked for the weekend of April 5 to read through the six-page contract. The government negotiators, aware of his declining health, had inserted a clause that would bind Mr. Gurlitt’s heirs.

On April 7 at 1 p.m., in the presence of Mr. Edel, he signed the document, which gave the task force one year to research dubious paintings, with the German and Bavarian governments covering all costs. Mr. Edel called the Bavarian justice ministry shortly thereafter.

Two days later, the prosecutors’ office said it released the art for Mr. Gurlitt to retrieve, citing “fresh elements,” adding that its investigation was continuing. The art remains in a government-rented warehouse.

Mr. Gurlitt remained mentally active throughout the negotiations. Mr. Edel visited him on May 5, telling colleagues he hadn’t appeared weaker than usual. He died the next day.

It’s good reading, if you can get the whole story.

Photo Credit: Zuma Press via the WSJ

 

Who Won The 2013 Curatorial Awards?

The Association of Art Museum Curators met in Detroit last week — a show of support for the city and the Detroit Institute of Arts, as disclosed here last year — and handed out awards. They are always interesting, as recognition by one’s peers is the highest form of praise, and this year they are very interesting — none of the usual suspects won awards.

HopperStudyIn exhibitions, the top award, for museums with an operating budget of more than $20 million, went to Red, White + Bold: Masterworks of Navajo Design, 1840 – 1870, curated by Nancy J. Blomberg, of the Denver Art Museum. I didn’t see that show, but I previewed the museum’s SPUN suite of exhibitions for The New York Times (here) and spoke with Bromberg about it. Good choice, I think.

Here are the others:

In EXHIBITIONS:

Museums with an operating budget between $4-20M

First Place: Yoga: The Art of Transformation, curated by Debra Diamond, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington

Honorable Mention: Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey, curated by Trevor Schoonmaker, Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Museums with an operating budget under $4M

First Place (TIE): An Errant Line: Ann Hamilton/Cynthia Schira, curated by Susan Earle, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas; and Encounters: The Arts of Africa, curated by Allyson Purpura, Krannert Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois

Honorable Mention: More Love: Art, Politics, and Sharing since the 1990s, curated by Claire Schneider, Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

In EXHIBITION CATALOGUES, we’ll go from small to large…

Museums with an operating budget under $4M

First Place: The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation by Mary-Kay Lombino and Peter Buse, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Honorable Mention: Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George by Erin B. Coe, Gwendolyn Owens, and Bruce Robertson, The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, New York

Museums with an operating budget between $4–20M

First Place: Yoga: The Art of Transformation by Debra Diamond, et al., Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington

Honorable Mention: Picturing Power: Portraiture and Its Uses in The New York Chamber of Commerce, by Karl Kusserow, Elizabeth Blackmar, Paul Staiti, et al., Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey

 Museums with an operating budgets over $20M

First Place: Hopper Drawing by Carter E. Foster, Daniel S. Palmer, Nicholas Robbins, et al., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Honorable Mention (TIE): German Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1350-1600 by Maryan W. Ainsworth and Joshua P. Waterman, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York AND Rauschenberg Research Project by Sarah Roberts, Nicholas Cullinan, Susan Davidson, et al., at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California.

And finally, in ARTICLES AND ESSAYS:

First Place: Charles Marville: Hidden in Plain Sight by Sarah Kennel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Honorable Mention: Delacroix and the Matter of Finish by Eik Kahng, Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Congratulations, all. I wish I had seen more of these exhibits.

Photo Credit: Hopper Study for Nighthawks, Courtesy of the Whitney Museum

 

Revenge On Germany: Bern Museum To Get Gurlitt’s Trove

The Kunstmuseum Bern is now saying that it is the “unrestricted and unfettered sole heir'” to Cornelius Gurlitt’s treasure trove of art, according to several reports. Wow.

KunstmuseumBernAccording to the London Daily Mail, one of several accountings of the aftermath of Curlitt’s death, “The 81-year-old son of Adolf Hitler’s art dealer, whose collection included many pieces looted by the Nazis, had made a will shortly before his death yesterday.”

In a statement it said the appointment brings “a considerable burden of responsibility and a wealth of questions of the most difficult and sensitive kind, and questions in particular of a legal and ethical nature.”

The museum says it never previously had any dealings with Gurlitt….

…Stephan Holzinger, Mr Gurlitt’s lawyer, told the BBC that Mr Gurlitt wrote the will in the last few weeks.

‘It now falls to the probate court to determine if the will is valid and whether a contract of inheritance exists,’ he said. ‘I can understand that there is now wild speculation, but I don’t want to comment on that at this stage.’

German authorities are said to be angry about this development — and museum officials, whose institutions were stripped of many of these works must be too. Will they contest? Gurlitt was clearly angry about the way he was treated in the last few years;  now he has got revenge.

The Daily Mail piece recounts the history of this affair pretty well, in case you have forgotten the details.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Daily MailÂ