Shared from the 7/28/2017 Albany Times Union eEdition

ART

Auction upsets museum groups

Picture
Stephanie Zollshan / The Berkshire Eagle archive

Elizabeth May competes at Mindball at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Mass., which is looking to emphasize science.

Pittsfield, Mass.

To fund a $60 million renovation and refocusing of its mission, The Berkshire Museum intends to auction 40 works of art from its collection, including two paintings by Norman Rockwell. The move has drawn condemnation from quarters including two prominent national museum groups.

The “reinvention plan,” as the museum is calling the initiative, was first announced July 12, with further details unveiled Monday. The museum projects it will spend $20 million to create “an exciting new interdisciplinary museum, with a heightened emphasis on science and history” and establish a new endowment fund of at least $40 million to support the new mission.

The cost will be covered in part by the auctioning of 40 works of fine art that have been deemed “no longer essential to the museum’s new interdisciplinary programs,” according to the museum’s announcement.

The works include a pair of paintings by Rockwell, the beloved mid-20th-century painter and illustrator who for years lived and worked in nearby Stockbridge, where there is a museum named after him. The Rockwells to be auctioned by Sotheby’s for the Berkshire Museum, both given by the artist himself to the institution, are “Blacksmith’s Boy – Heel and Toe (Shaftsbury Blacksmith Shop),” from 1940, and, from 1950, “Shuffleton’s Barbershop.” Well-known Rockwell paintings typically sell for millions of dollars; a trio, all covers from The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s and early 1950s, brought in nearly $58 million at a Sotheby’s auction four years ago. Other works in the deaccession list include Impressionist, modern, contemporary, American and Chinese art, and are by major artists including Alexander Calder; they were chosen from more than 2,400 works of fine art in the museum’s holdings of an estimated 40,000 objects.

Two major museum organizations, The American Alliance of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors, said they are “deeply opposed” to the plan to sell the works of art.

Saying that the sales of art such as the one proposed by the Berkshire Museum “undermine the public’s trust in the mission of nonprofit museums,” the organizations released a joint statement that also said, “If these works are indeed sold, it would be an irredeemable loss for the present and for generations to come.”

Disapproval from the groups has in the past resulted in sanctions that ask member organizations not to lend artworks to museums that violate their codes of ethics.

Deaccessioning, or the permanent removal of an object from a museum’s collection, has become a touchy subject for communities and art lovers alike as museums look to stay solvent. During the past decade, moves by the Detroit Institute of Arts, The Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington and other art institutions have been ongoing controversies, drawing national coverage.

The Berkshire Museum released a statement in response to the condemnation that said, in part, “The board and staff of the Berkshire Museum gave full consideration to the guidelines on deaccessioning published by the American Alliance of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors, and their response to our strategy is not unexpected. But we believe it is the right strategy for the future of the Berkshire Museum and for the future of Pittsfield.”

According to the museum’s website, the new direction of the museum was decided after what they said was an extensive planning process, including several day-long retreats for the board of trustees; three groups of community leaders that met several times; and a series of 22 focus groups, engaging approximately 235 individuals from ages 8 to 55 and over. The participants included local children in both public and private schools.

The Berkshire Museum’s director Van Shields was unavailable for comment on Thursday.

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Well-known Rockwell paintings typically sell for millions of dollars; a trio, all covers from The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s and early 1950s, brought in nearly $58 million at a Sotheby’s auction four years ago.

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