Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

People

To Boston, With Love — From Tom Campbell

NortheasterGestures are important, and here’s one that deserves notice. Within hours of the bombing at the Boston Marathon last month, Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum,* reached out to Malcolm Rogers, director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, offering his support and backing that up with the suggestion that the Met lend a few paintings to the MFA as a special show. As a result, the MFA will put the three — chosen by Campbell and Met curators — on display during its “community weekend” over the three-day Memorial Day celebration. They’ll remain on view there until July 7, nicely taking in the July 4th celebration as well.

LachrymaeIn a press release from the MFA, Campbell said:

The Met wanted to show support for its sister institution during this challenging moment for the people of Boston. Great museums are places of solace and inspiration, particularly when tragedy strikes a community. I hope the works of art we have lent will help the city’s recovery in some small way.

That’s class (and I appreciate the reference to solace and inspiration).

The works are Northeaster (1895) by Winslow Homer (above); Lachrymae (ca. 1894–95; completed by 1901) by Frederic, Lord Leighton (at right); and The Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteuil (1874) by Edouard Manet. They got the nod, according to the MFA, because

The works reflect the range of sentiments experienced by Bostonians in recent weeks—from the turmoil brought on by the raging storm of events that began on April 15, to the sorrow felt by residents, to the promise of joy and better days to come. Messages to Boston from both Campbell and Rogers will accompany the paintings, which will be on view in the MFA’s Art of the Americas Wing in the Barbara and Theodore Alfond Gallery (2nd floor). The gallery also features works by Winslow Homer, including the MFA’s beloved painting, Boys in a Pasture (1874), as well as works by Thomas Eakins.

The MFA decided to be free from Saturday, May 25, through Monday, May 27, because of the tragedy. It is calling the event-filled weekend “Boston I Love,” and it also involves contributions — in the form of a quilt — from around the globe. Again, from the release:

In response to the tragedy in Boston, quilters from around the world have created hundreds of hand-sewn squares in tribute to the city, which will be presented in To Boston With Love. Each mini quilt delivers a message of peace and hope and is signed on the back by the artist, with his or her country. They were created by quilters in the US and around the world, including Canada, England, Ireland, France, Holland, Australia, Japan, Brazil, and Africa. The squares have ties at each end, enabling them to be linked together to form a chain of quilts that will be displayed in the MFA’s glass-enclosed Shapiro Family Courtyard. The project was a grass-roots effort conceived by Berene Campbell of Vancouver, Canada, and organized locally by Amy Friend of Newton. It was activated through social media using Flickr…

More in the press release, linked above.

MonetFamilyMFA is also planning to let visitors make their own pictures and add them to “an ever-expanding community collage at the MFA. Visitors will be able to contribute to The One Fund Boston at donation boxes located throughout the Museum.”

Certainly after 9/11, the Met was a place of solace, so it is wonderful that MFA is doing this. Kudos to all involved. It literally has brought tears to my eyes.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Met

* I consult to a foundation that support the Met

People In The News Lately

Pepper HenryLet’s catch up on a few personnel changes announced in recent days:

The first, and should be biggest, news: Jim Leach resigned yesterday from his job as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The fact that this did not make news says something about his tenure there. I watch for the NEH’s grant announcements — which go to more museums than many people realize — and I think it supports some excellent projects. But Leach, imho, was not very effective as the chief. partly because he chose to embark on a civility tour of the country — making speeches about the need to be civil. I’m all for that, but I don’t think that was his job.

It’s true that Leach also launched a “Bridging Cultures” program, which was “designed to promote understanding and mutual respect for diverse groups within the United States and abroad.” Sotto voce, people always said this was about trying to help people understand Islam and Muslims in America — and getting all minorities to learn American history and values, too. I have not seen results. Leach leaves the first week in May, and Deputy Chairman Carole Watson will be the acting head.

The Heard Museum in Phoenix has a new director: James Pepper Henry (at right), who most recently was director of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center in Alaska. “There,” according to the press release, “he oversaw the completion of the museum’s $110 million, 80,000-square-foot expansion, including the debut of the new Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center exhibition hall and the new Imaginarium Discovery Center.” Pepper Henry is a sculptor and member of the Kaw Nation of Oklahoma and the Muscogee Creek Nation. He’s put in time in various positions at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the Kanza Museum inKaw City, Okla.; the Portland Art Museum; the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center in Portland, Ore.; and the Institute of Alaska Native Arts in Fairbanks. He starts at the Heard on Aug. 5.

Darby EnglishA very plum job at the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts went today to Darby English, an associate professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago. He will take over from Michael Ann Holly as the next Starr Director of the Clark’s Research and Academic Program. That means English will oversee the Clark’s residential scholars’ program — which past participants tell me is a fabulous gig — as well as its international programs and partnerships.

English, the press release says, “graduated from Williams College in 1996 with a degree in art history and philosophy and earned a doctorate in visual and cultural studies from the University of Rochester in 2002. He has served on the University of Chicago’s faculty since 2003, teaching modern and contemporary art and cultural studies. He served as the assistant director of the Research and Academic Program from 1999 through 2003.” He has also written How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness (MIT Press, 2007).

Finally, not a personnel change, but an award: Rem Koolhaas has won the Johannes Vermeer Award, given each year by the Dutch state, and intended “for artists working in the Netherlands and across all disciplines, ranging from dance to design, from fashion to music, from writing to painting.” He gets €100,000, which he is supposed to us to complete a project. Last year, Marlene Dumas won the prize.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Heard (top) and Clark (bottom)

 

 

Consolation Prize: $17 Million For Old Masters

Back in December, I wrote here that the bid by the Dallas Museum of Art to buy the recently discovered Leonardo, Salvator Mundi, had failed — not enough money to satisfy the owners, who reportedly wanted $200 million but had agreed to settle for somewhat less to see it go to Dallas. Alas, the gap was too big.

marguerite-hoffman-img_0092Today the museum announced that good things can come from failure: one of the donors to the fundraising drive, trustee and past chairman Marguerite Steed Hoffman (left), has decided to establish of a $17 million endowment for European art created before 1700: $13.6 million will be a restricted acquisitions endowment and $3.4  million will go to an operating endowment in support of pre-1700 European acquisitions, exhibitions, and programs. As the press release said, “this new fund more than doubles the DMA’s acquisition endowment and brings total funds in support of the Museum’s acquisitions to 50,000,000.”

The museum talks about its strength in late 19th- and early 20th-century European works, “with the most significant collection of French impressionism and post-impressionism in the region.” (That’s not that hard… given Dallas’s location in north Texas.) “But its collection of old master paintings is comparatively modest,” the release says.

What’s very nice is that Hoffman and her late husband are collectors of contemporary art:

Even prior to this gift, Marguerite and Robert Hoffman were already among the greatest benefactors in the Museum’s history. In February 2005, the Dallas Museum of Art announced the unprecedented gift of modern and contemporary collections from Marguerite and Robert Hoffman, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, and Deedie and Rusty Rose. The idea behind the joint gift came from the Hoffmans, who at the time co-chaired the Centennial Campaign, which was launched in 2003–04 to ensure the Dallas Museum of Art’s continuing stability and growth. To jump-start the campaign, the Hoffmans issued a bold challenge: If the Museum reached its goal for the first phase of the campaign, they would bequeath to the Dallas Museum of Art their art collection and an endowment to care for the collection as well as make a generous gift to the campaign. Their action provided the foundation for a successful campaign that ultimately raised over $185 million.

More details here.

What’s also nice is that prices for Renaissance and Baroque art are sometimes low enough for the museum to make significant purchases if it shops wisely and accumulates funds from year to year. I hope Dallas does not ignore Old Master sculpture.

It’s Far From Over Yet: LA-MOCA’s Independence Campaign

It’s a journalistic convention: after an election, the emergence from bankruptcy, or some other momentous change, we often write headlines that say something along the lines of “Now Comes The Hard Part.” It’s common because it usually happens to be true.

JeffreySorosEarlier today, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles announced that it had received pledges from donors that would place its current endowment above $60 million (versus $23 million earlier this year), and that it was building toward a goal of $100 million. You can see various versions of the story here — from the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Here is MOCA’s own press release.

The fundraising campaign is being called “MOCA Independence.”  In the release, Jeffrey Soros (pictured, left), the board’s president, said, “The financial support we have already raised demonstrates the commitment of the board to ensuring that MOCA remains a world-class independent contemporary art museum, and we call on others to join in this campaign.”

It’s great that this board has finally stepped up to the plate. But now comes the hard part — really. Not only do the trustees have a long way to go to get to $100 million, but that will generate only about $5 million a year if the trustees are lucky. MOCA’s budget is about $14 million annually. Getting about a third of your revenue from the endowment isn’t bad — many museums don’t achieve that — but it means that trustees will have to keep opening their wallets in annual contributions.

Plus, even if trustees are intent on turning down the merger offer from Michael Govan at the LA County Museum of Art, they still must deal with Eli Broad and they still must heal the divisions in the board. Not to mention addressing the directorial question – in my opinion, Jeffrey Deitch is a bad match for the job, part of the problem, not the solution.

So, thanks to the trustees who have pledged more than $35 million in the last few weeks. But now comes the hard part.

 

 

 

Bread And Circuses: A Coup At The Corcoran?

Even if you disliked Nicholas Sarkozy, in one way you couldn’t help rooting for him to win the presidency of France a few year back because he was so entertaining. Loud, outspoken, a shameless self-promoter who liked to challenge convention, he was great to write about and read about.

ReynoldsThere’s more than an element of Sarkozy in Wayne Reynolds, the brash Washingtonian who wants to be chairman of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Late last week, he began emailing potential supporters of  his quest with an invitation to an open bar reception on the top floor of the ­Hay-Adams Hotel next Friday, which he is paying for and organizing with the Save the Corcoran group. The recipients included the Corcoran’s students, faculty and staff.

“Do I have a choice?” Reynolds [told a Washington Post reporter]. “Harry Hopper [the current chair] has told the board not to talk to me, not to meet with me. It’s not really a reflection of me. It’s a reflection of the way they operate their board. . . . We’re staging a revolution. ”

He also told the paper’s David Montgomery that he will pay the $10,000 cost of the party, and that he’s worried that the 300-person capacity of the banquet room might be exceeded.

In the Post article, Reynolds elaborated a little on his plans — and here’s where the worry comes in:

Reynolds says he will explain at the reception his vision for what he calls a national Corcoran Center for Creativity. He would expand the college and focus the museum on digital art, photography and contemporary art. Most controversially, he proposes creating an endowment of “a few hundred million dollars” in large part by deaccessioning — selling — a fraction of the collection that is rarely displayed.

…Reynolds says that a respected scholar, familiar with the collection, has pledged to consult on deaccessioning and has given assurances that such a sum could be raised without sacrificing great paintings.

Not likely.  Apparently Reynolds named the scholar — or Montgomery discovered it in another way — but the person in question declined to be identified. I’ll bet. I’d sure like to know his/her fee arrangement, too.

Also, if the Corcoran under Reynolds focuses on the three areas he mentioned, what’s to become of the 102 pre-1945 American paintings featured in the 2011 Corcoran catalogue? (Have a look here.)

One part of Reynolds’s view — “It’s shameful what’s happened there” — is correct. If he goads the current board into action, that would be a good thing. If he somehow wins, the East Coast will have its own version of the mess at LA-MOCA.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Washington Post