Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

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

The Corcoran Saga: Strange, Sad

And so the deal to end the Corcoran Art Gallery as a separate entity is “closed,” as the Washington Post reported last week and as the National Gallery of Art, which later put out a press release, said. All of this still requires court approval to change the mission, but that is probably perfunctory.

CorcoranFirst a few of the basics. This “historic collaboration,” the release said,

…will maintain the historic Corcoran building as a showplace for art and a home for the Corcoran College and its programs, creating a global hub for the arts at [George Washington University]. The collaboration also will safeguard the Corcoran’s collection and increase access to it as a public resource in Washington, D.C.

…The National Gallery will maintain 15,000 square feet of exhibit space on the skylit second floor of the Corcoran building’s most historic section. That is less than half the 37,000 square feet of current exhibition space. One room will be a “Corcoran Legacy Gallery” with key works of the collection, and other rooms will feature more contemporary work, from the National Gallery and elsewhere. Instead of the current $10 charge at the door, admission will be free.

…The National Gallery is likely to select more than half the Corcoran’s 17,000 artworks, “to make a logical marriage of the two collections that enhances both of them,” [Rusty] Powell [the NGA’s director] said. The rest will be given to other museums, with priority granted to local galleries.

Meantime, GW gets the Corcoran building, and

…the university also will take responsibility for preserving the famed Salon Doré, the 18th-century French period room on the first floor; the 16th-century French mantel on the first floor; and the Canova Lions out front. GWU will sell the Corcoran’s classroom building in Georgetown and use the proceeds for renovations of the main building.

However, as the Post reported, “The Corcoran Gallery of Art will contribute about $48 million of endowment funds and proceeds from a previous sale of precious rugs to help finance the new arrangement.”

What has not been said, according to people much more familiar with this than I am, is what happens to some $40 million in the Corcoran’s acquisitions fund. That’s a good question.

Another one: the announcement said that joint advisory committees with GW and also with the NGA “will consult and advise on programs and activities in the 17th Street building and will promote contemporary art and artists.” Who will be on them? One would hope NOT many of the people who ran the Corcoran into the ground.

Jayme McLellan of Save the Corcoran has other thoughts about this — hat tip to a friend who wishes to remain anonymous — which I publish part of here:

I can only hope that history, and perhaps DC superior court, pay homage to the original vision of the Corcoran – an institution that was not meant to be a tangent consumed by two behemoth institutions. It was not meant to have a portion of its collection – a time capsule of art and American history -  placed into the National Gallery of Art, with the rest scattered to other institutions.

The building was not meant to be given away to the largest holder of real estate in Foggy Bottom.

The Corcoran was meant to be an independent voice that encourages American genius. And at $48,000 a year for tuition, the artists enrolled in GW’s Corcoran had better be geniuses at earning a paycheck.

In the deepest most fundamental sense, I believe that the Corcoran was not understood by the board. They didn’t get the real value. The board that made these decisions did not look into the faces of the staff for months. They made deals in secret, sold assets not belonging to them, and hired unqualified executives to do their bidding. And a lot of people suffered, and continue to suffer in the face of this uncertainty. I guess if the moral arch of the universe is as long as they say, and it bends toward justice, maybe the true story will come out one day. It will start something like this: Harry Hopper wanted to sell the building and have a purpose built facility erected on the waterfront in Alexandria. And he never considered for a minute that the community would care as much as they did about that old building…. but they weren’t going to get in his way.

I have sympathies for this point of view — however, given the makeup of the Corcoran board and management in recent years, I don’t think it was possible to save the Corcoran as it was. A reluctant conclusion, but a realistic one. This deal, bad as it is in some respects, may be the best outcome at this point.

 

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

 

Delaware Deaccession Strategy: Sell Just Two Works?

The London auction offering William Holman Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil  from the Delaware Art Museum is a month away (June 17) but the catalogue is set to be released only on Monday. It’s pretty clear why: the museum wanted to sell it privately, but Christie’s couldn’t come up with a buyer who would pay the required price.

The painting carries an estimate of £5 to £8 million, or $8.4 to $13.4 million at today’s exchange rates, according to an article in the Wilmington News Journal.  It adds that the catalogue for the Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist Art sale contains 12 pages on the Hunt painting.

hopper_summertime_550pxIf the Hunt does draw an amount near the $13 million mark — or more — the museum would probably move next to its wonderful Winslow Homer Milking Time, which should certainly fetch in the double-digit millions, more than the Hunt and — just a guess — $20 million? It dates to 1875 and measures 24 x 38¼ inches.

The museum’s money-raising, debt-reducing, endowment-building goal is $30 million.

Museum officials have already marked off several works they won’t be selling, according to the News Journal:

…the museum won’t sell any pieces by American illustrator Howard Pyle, given their lower estimated value.

Many other celebrated works in the museum’s 12,500-piece collection will be spared, according to Susan Kreshtool, the incoming president of the museum’s docent board who attended board meetings on the sale over the past year. These include the museum’s holdings of N.C., Andrew and Jamie Wyeth, and 20th century art and sculpture.

Early on the museum said it would not sell any works acquired through a gift or by bequest, which puts the vast bulk of its collection off-limits, including Edward Hopper’s Summertime (above).

All of which has people guessing about the strategy. Could two works do it?

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum

 

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