For 50 years, the Toledo Museum of Art has coveted a painting by Bolognese master Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino (“the squinter”). Not just any work, because it had to both fill a gap and rise to the level of the rest of the museum’s 17th Century painting collection. In fact, Toledo hasn’t purchased an Italian baroque painting since 1983, when it purchased Lot and His Daughters by Artemisia Gentileschi.

But in 2009, by coincidence, the museum learned of a beautiful Guercino of — Lot and His Daughters. In October, it bought the work (above), and at 7 p.m. this Friday, Jan. 22, it will unveil it to the public in a special ceremony. The museum has rehung the gallery, and for now is putting the Guercino in the spot of honor, normally occupied by Rubens’s Crowning of Saint Catherine. 

How did this stroke of luck occur? It is one of the Five Questions I posed to Lawrence W. Nichols, curator of pre-1900 European and American Art at the Toledo Museum:

1) How did this painting, perfect for the collection, come to be offered to the museum?

In January 2009, two dealers scheduled an appointment to see me and the collection. The New York dealer had been to Toledo in the past, but his Florentine partner had not. The dealers asked me what I was looking for, and I gave my standard answer — “show me the best you have.”

We discussed gaps in the collection, including our need for a Guercino with the size, presence and quality to hold its place in the Great Gallery. As coincidence had it, very shortly thereafter they came to represent a private Italian collector who wanted to sell his Guercino, Lot and His Daughters. In early March, they sent me an email with a picture of the work.

I was very excited by the image. I went to New York to see the painting, and after months of research, I received the go-ahead to bring the painting to Toledo on loan. We acquired it on Oct. 1.    

2) Briefly, can you say what this purchase does to lift your collection?

The TMA has a painting by Guido Reni and now we have the other major 17th-century Bolognese painter represented in a major way. The condition of the canvas is remarkable, and in our Baroque gallery it immediately comes to rival our great Rubens, Preti, Poussin, and Valentin. I was holding out for scale, condition, and proverbial “wall power.” This does this, and then some.

3) What should viewers look at, as they compare the two works?  

[Read more…] about Toledo Scores The Perfect Guercino: Five Questions For The Curator

Remember the old line about the Soviet Union’s two main newspapers — Pravda (which means “the truth”) and Izvestia (which means “the news”)? Pre-glasnost, Russian wags used to say “there’s no truth in Pravda and there’s no news in Izvestia.” (More cynical Russians rendered a harsher verdict: “There’s no news in the Truth, and there’s no truth in the News.”)

Not to be a wag, but I couldn’t help but think of the second half of the milder version when a press release from the Association of Art Museum Directors landed in my email box on Friday afternoon: there’s no news in this.

For the record, the release led with the “news” that 123 directors, of 197, attended the meeting in Sarasota, FL, then restated AAMD’s mission of maximizing the appreciation of art, and said members talked about their strategic plan. It also reaffirmed AAMD’s deaccessioning policy, stating that proceeds from art sales may not be used for operating funds or capital budgets. All true, of course.

But surely more interesting things that that were going on…I think so. Maybe it was in the committee meetings.

For one thing, deaccessioning discussions were not cut-and-dried unanimous, I’ve been told. Some members — I do not know how many — believe, as I do, there should be a review process for museums in extremis that ask to sell art to raise money to remain in business (see here and here). They’d open the process just a crack to very selective deaccessioning. Perhaps, as I’ve laid out, there would be onerous requirements and high hurdles to do it. I envision any sales as part of a package of remedial measures, not the entire package — though, in my proposal, arbitrators would have oversight of that. AAMD could set rules requiring that, however.

For another, AAMD continued with its efforts to reach diversity by enlarging its membership. And while the goal is noble, the means are causing some grousing among the larger museums. AAMD is three people short of its current ceiling of 200 members; that ceiling was 150 in 1990, according to press reports of the time. In 1999, membership was 170.

Last year at this time, when the meeting was held in San Diego, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that qualifying institutions must have “a budget of $2.5 million for two years running.” Now, according to AAMD’s website, members must run institutions with an “annual operating budget equivalent to or exceeding $2 million for two consecutive years.” (It’s true that many budgets have declined in this recesssion: that may be a reason for this drop, though as I understand membership, once you’re in, you stay in as long as you keep your job and remain in good standing.)

Trouble is, as the group grows, the major museums find AAMD less relevant. The big guys skip meetings — understandably. At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for example, Malcolm Rogers oversees a budget close to $100 million. He is one of several who rarely attend, I’m told — no criticism on my part intended.

AAMD is a trade association, and doesn’t have to publish anything after its meetings. The emailed release is something. Unfortunately for me, it raised my expectations. Maybe next time it will fulfill them — the group’s strategic plan and deaccessioning policy review are supposed to be finished later this year. 

 

How did the advent of the camera, and specifically the development of fine art photography, spur the new approach to painting known now as Impressionism? Not just the camera, of course — it was coupled with other social, artistic, technological, and commercial changes that began along the Normandy coast in 1850s France. Especially the development of tourism.

That is the point of what sounds like a great exhibit organized by the University of Michigan Museum of Art. The Lens of Impressionism: Photography and Painting Along the Normandy Coast, 1850-1874 closed on Jan. 3, but is now moving to the Dallas Museum of Art, where it opens on Feb. 21 and runs ’til May 22. Sounds good — and there’s more: Dallas is adding its own touch. 

In the show organized by Michigan, Dallas will display about 100 works by the likes of Courbet, Degas, Monet, Le Gray, Manet, Whistler and Boudin. The twin images here are by Monet — The Sea At Le Harvre, 1868 — and by Le Gray — The Beach at Sainte-Adresse, View of the Cliffs (Plage de Sainte-Adresse, vue de la falaise), 1856. The Michigan museum has more examples here (as well as a video about the show).

Then, Dallas is doing something smart: On April 25, it will open Coastlines: Images of Land and Sea, an exhibit drawn from its collections that displays how artists throughout the past century–from Hopper to De Kooning to Richter to Opie–have depicted land and seascapes, from Miami Beach to Maine, North Africa to Nice, into their work. That’s Lynn Davis’s Iceberg #25 (Disko Bay-Iceland), 2000, at left. (Couldn’t find a twin.)

You can read more about Coastlines here.

Obviously, I haven’t seen either exhibit, but I love the pairing, and the idea that visitors will see 160 years of art in two distinct but related shows.

Thanks to my deaccessioning op-ed in The New York Times (see here and here), I pretty much had to go downtown today to a “roundtable” hosted by New York Assemblyman Stephen Englebright, chairman of the Committee on Tourism, Parks, Arts and Sports. It was designed to “review” Assemblyman Richard Brodsky’s bill, which forbids the deaccessioning of collection materials for any other purpose than buying more items for the collection. It’s a broad bill — covering libraries, historical societies, historic houses, and zoos. Brodsky called me himself — first to make nice (we’re not that far apart, let me explain it to you, he said) and to invite me to the roundtable, and then to try to persuade me to agree with him. Didn’t work.

I’m not going to give you my impressions today — I’ve been busy on a deadline article (paying work has to take precedence) and am not available tonight. Besides, Robin Pogrebin was there for the Times, along with a photographer, and I expect a full report in tomorrow’s paper.

UPDATE: here’s the link to the Times article.

Afterwards, I’ll add –or subtract. For now, suffice it to say that the Brodsky bill, he promised, will be going back to the drafting table for revisions.

Brodsky said he would make sure that he didn’t place any unfunded mandates on New York’s collecting institutions, which it does with the current language — though he disagrees. He made other promises, too.

And btw there certainly wasn’t unanimity on the key point of the bill — preventing deacessioning for purposes other than collecting. Some people offered support for my position — though they called it “peer review” instead of arbitration.

Nor was there agreement by other Assembly members present that there need be any new law.

So the Brodsky bill is in no way a done deal.

More when I am not on deadline (or out).  

 

 

The Louvre is once again claiming the title as most-visited art museum in the world. On Monday, when most eyes here in the U.S. art world were aimed at the West Coast, the Louvre (below) announced that 8.5 million people passed through its doors in 2009. That’s the same as last year, and the fourth year in a row the total has topped 8 million.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, according to an article in the U.K. Independent, also achieved the same total as last year — about 4.8 million. But attendance at the world’s second most popular museum, the British Museum, dropped in 2009 — to almost 5.6 million, from more than 5.9 million in 2008. (In 2008, two other museums outranked the Met: the National Gallery in Washington ranked third with more than 4.96 million and the Tate Modern in London came in fourth with 4.95 million — leaving the Met in fifth place worldwide. They haven’t reported their numbers for 2009.)

What does this mean for the rest of the museum world? I won’t be surprised if the pattern is more like the British Museum’s than the Louvre’s or the Met’s — with totals lower than last year.

Aside from my own anecdotal reporting, I base that on the numbers reported to The Art Newspaper in its December issue. The article said museum attendance here was on the rise, and the three-year-trend is up. But in many cases the actual numbers show that’s wishful thinking for 2009. Only the Art Institute of Chicago, with its new wing, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, with its exceedingly popular Kandinsky exhibit, are obviously having blockbuster years.

This is a dent to morale. Museums mounted a lot of great shows last year, planned before the recession began; 2010 offerings are looking a little less spectacular — and in many cases they are occupying galleries for longer periods of time.   

So I think museums should brace for another difficult year, on several fronts — not just in attendance. Two recent surveys showed that consumer confidence remains low: the index for the “current situation” is at a 26-year low; another confidence survey dipped in January after rising slightly in December. People aren’t planning to return to previous spending levels — memberships may be expendable. Bloomberg, tallying a group of economic projections into a consensus forecast, suggests that the U.S. GDP is likely to expand by 2.6% this year, but philanthropy tends rise long after the economy starts to climb.

The upside, if there is one, is that the art market also lags the economy. If museums have money — or willing donors — this would be a year to buy.