Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

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Directorial Job News: Emily Neff Out, Benedict Leca In

1383588824466Emily Neff, who took the job as director of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma just last January, left the job quietly last month. Neff, who was formerly curator of American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, resigned–probably under pressure–in early October, according to local reports, and it was accepted by the university president, David Boren, and then in late October by the board of regents. .

I have not been able to reach Neff, so I will not be able to go into details. But my understanding from talking with art world sources is that it was a mismatch from the get-go. Her strategy and her approach did not mesh with those of the museum’s advisory board or staff.

Neff, also chief curator at the Fred Jones museum, was a fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership a few years ago and is president of the Association of Art Museum Curators.

Here is a link to one of the local reports, in the Oklahoman,

BenedictFull11.20.14On a more pleasant note, Benedict Leca, who curated The World is An Apple: The Still Lifes of Paul Cezanne exhibition (answering five questions about it here) at the Barnes, and had been chief curator of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, in Ontario, and previously curator of European art at the Cincinnati Art Museum, has been named executive director of the Redwood Library & Athenæum in Newpost, RI.

The Redwood has a permanent collection of art, as well as space for changing exhibitions, I’m told. Currently, it is presenting a small show called Portraits of Interiors, including “interior landscapes of Newport houses by Walter Gay, David Mode Payne, and Mstislav Dobujinsky as well as contemporary artists working in and continuing the legacy of this genre.”

Leca’s vision for the Redwood includes “expansive art exhibitions,” I’m told. He starts Jan. 15.

You can read more about him and the Redwood here.

Photo Credits: University of Oklahoma (top); Redwood Library (bottom)

 

Oops: There’s Bigger News Today From Sotheby’s – UPDATED

RuprechtWilliam Ruprecht, the CEO, is stepping down, and the board has begun a search for a new chief executive. Obviously, while I was busy here writing about the Georgia O’Keeffe record sale today at Sotheby’s, a lot more was happening on York Avenue in NYC.

The announcement arrived a short time ago:

Ruprecht, who has served as CEO since 2000, will continue as Chairman, President and CEO until his successor is in place to ensure a smooth transition.

The Board has formed a Search Committee to oversee the recruiting of a new CEO and has retained Spencer Stuart, a leading executive search firm, to assist in the process.  The Committee is led by Domenico De Sole, Lead Independent Director.

Ruprecht joined the company in 1980 and became CEO in 2000. He’s been beleaguered by activist hedge fund manager Daniel S. Loeb for a long time now. Last May, Loeb joined the board, along with two colleagues, and he hasn’t let up the pressure to get better performance out of Sotheby’s. Ruprecht’s days were numbered.

Here’s a link to the Bloomberg story on the situation last May.

UPDATE, 11/21: The New York Times, which got this story out there first, has what I think is the most complete wrap-up of the situation, including yesterday’s 7% stock jump on the news in after-hours trading. At the moment, the stock maintaining most of the jump. But it will be interesting to watch who Loeb and his pals bring in. The NYT story reminds us that:

…Mr. Loeb took on Yahoo two years ago, unearthing evidence that the company’s chief executive at the time had overstated his academic credentials. He gained three board seats and then helped the company hire Marissa Mayer as its chief.

He later sold the majority of his stake back to Yahoo for $1.2 billion, earning a big profit.

Yahoo’s stock is certainly trading above where it was two years ago, but it’s still considered a company in search of a mission.

 

 

Sotheby’s Roars Back In American Art

Years ago, when I first started covering auctions, Sotheby’s always had the best American art sales. Lots of people didn’t even bother going to Christie’s to look, I recall.

GO'KJimson WeedBut that changed, and for the last several years, as in most categories, Christie’s has surpassed Sotheby’s in this category, getting the best art and posting the best sales totals.  Not this week. Thanks to three consignments by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Sotheby’s sale today reached $75.4 million, far exceeding it presale high estimate of $46 million–though that figure does not include the buyer’s premium and the grand total does.

Credit O’Keeffe, whose three works fetched a total of $50.4 million–which will go into the museum’s acquisitions fund. O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, brought $44.4 million, more than three times the previous world auction record for any female artist, and more than seven times the previous auction record for O’Keeffe. Sotheby’s reported:

Seven bidders competed for Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, but it was a prolonged battle between two determined bidders that drove the price to this record height – nearly tripling the work’s high estimate of $15 million. The work is a well-known example of O’Keeffe’s celebrated flower paintings, which in turn stand among the most recognizable images in both art history and popular culture.

The buyer wishes to remain anonymous.

The museum’s other tw0 works On the Old Santa Fe Road, fetched the second-highest price of the day, , nearly $5,1 million against an estimate of $2- to 3 million, and Untitled (Skunk Cabbage) sold for $941,000 against an estimate of $500,000 to $750,000.

Sotheby’s is naturally happy about this. Christie’s American art sale yesterday totaled $46.5 million. The top lot was Norman Rockwell’s Willie Gillis: Hometown News at nearly $4.2 million. But there’s a little catch: the connection to the O’Keeffe Museum is John Marion, Sotheby’s legendary auctioneer, who retired in 1995. His wife, the former Anne Burnett, founded the O’Keeffe museum. Whether Sotheby’s can keep this up without Marion is the key question. But it would be nice to see a return of some razzle dazzle to the American art market.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Sotheby’s 

 

Revealed: Roman Hoard, Found In France, Conserved Here

B-cupImagine being a French farmer, plowing your field near a village named Berthouville in rural Normandy; it’s 1830. And you hit something, stop and discover the first items in a trove that grew to 90 silver and gilt-silver statuettes and vessels dating to the 3rd century and before.

It happened, and now, after four years of conservation work at the Getty Museum, they went on view today at the Getty Villa. Known as the Berthouville Treasure, they appear to be an ancient offering to the Gallo-Roman god Mercury, the museum says. It’s the first time that the hoard, which is owned by the Department of Coins, Medals and Antiques at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, has been displayed in its entirety outside of Paris. The Getty has thrown in some “precious gems, jewelry, and other Roman luxury objects from the Cabinet’s royal collections” to heighten the appeal of the hoard.

But for those who have already had a peek–and I know a couple of them, though they wish to remain anonymous–the Berthouville Treasure is quite fabulous (see right here, below)

B-hoard

The Biblioteque Nationale bought the hoard for 15,000 francs, likely thwarting local plans to melt down the silver pieces. Instead, there were two additional excavations at the site, in 1861 and in 1896.

There’s a marvelous story in Fall 2014 issue of The Getty, the Getty Trust’s magazine. It tells how the pieces arrived at the Getty “dusty, grimy, darkened from tarnish, and the surfaces were mottled,” according to Eduardo Sanchez, a conservator at the museum. “We could tell different hands had done the restorations, and many of the inscriptions we later found were not yet visible.” The museum’s conservators worked with scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute.

B-MercuryUnfortunately, you will have to ask the Getty for a copy of the magazine, because it’s not online (should be!). Instead, I will have to link to the exhibition press release, which doesn’t have the details of the conservation work. And I will link to a few posts on the Getty Iris blog over the last few years, while work was being done on the Berthouville Treasure.

Here’s the “welcome” in 2011; a post about “the search” in 2012; and, also in 2012, more about the conservation. All of them have pictures, though not the ones I show here–of the hoard, of one cup (of a pair) and of Mercury.

I think it’s very interesting that France sent these treasure objects to the Getty for conservation–so hats off to the Getty on that. And on showing them to us: the Treasure will stay art the Getty until next August. So I may see it yet, in the flesh.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Getty

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow’s Museum Leaders–And A Few Of Today

Whether or not they ever become museum directors, the twelve curators who were named this week as the eighth class of fellows at the Center for Curatorial Leadership* are signalling their ambition. It’s a well-rounded group, coming from ten American museums plus two overseas museums–in Denmark and the Netherlands.

JRavenalBut before we get to them, let me link to two people who were named museum directors this week (aside fr0m new president of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Don Bacigalupi): John B. Ravenal (right), modern and contemporary curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts will become director of the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Massachusetts (details here) and Amada Cruz (left), currently executive director of Artpace in San Antonio, will become director of the Phoenix Art Museum (details here).

Nine of the 12 museums have never had a participant in the program–which sometimes has looked as if big museums had an edge. A committee of “leading” museum directors chose the group, the CCL says. Two, as you’ll see, are already museum directors but are sharpening their skills.

Amada-Cruz-phoenix-art-museum.JPGSo who are they?

  • Dorthe Aagesen, Curator/Senior Researcher, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Kathleen Ash-Milby, Associate Curator, Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, New York City
  • Rene Paul Barilleaux, Chief Curator/Curator of Art After 1945, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas
  • Gudrun Buehl, Curator/Museum Director, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
  • Carol Eliel, Curator of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
  • Anne Goodyear, Co-Director, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine
  • Toby Kamps, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
  • Corey Keller, Curator of Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
  • Mary Morton, Curator/Head of the Department of French Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
  • Pieter Roelofs, Curator of 17th-Century Dutch Painting, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Xavier Salomon, Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, The Frick Collection, New York City
  • Sarah Schleuning, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia

You can see the full press release here.

Since this program started in 2008, it has graduated 74 curators. As Buffy Easton, who co-founded the CCL with Aggie Gund, has said, these fellows don’t always go on to be museum directors. But they usually advance, though it’s impossible to say whether participating in the program contributed to that. The whole thing lasts only five months, and only about a month of that is time spent together, away from their museums.

But this program does create networks and sharing of expertise, so it does have a positive effect aside from recognizing and perhaps endorsing the fellows’ ambition.

*I consult to a foundation that supports CCL