DeaccessionedArt

Denver Museum Plans To Sell Namesake's Art

Filed under: Art

The issue of when and just how much of its artwork a museum can sell is one we keep seeing in the news. A planned Denver museum's plan to sell four paintings done by its namesake is causing a bit of controversy. The Clyfford Still Museum has announced a plan to sell four of the 825 paintings mean to be housed in the new Clyfford Still Museum.

The sale could raise $25 million for the museum because Still's work rarely comes up for sale. The museum will be a Clyfford Still treasure trove housing 94% of the artist's work. The Denver Post reports that the sale doesn't technically violate the American Association of Museums and Association of Art Museum Directors terms for "deaccessioning" artworks. The privately funded museum hasn't opened yet and therefore hasn't taken possession of the pieces which were bequeathed to the city of Denver when Still's widow, Patricia, died in 2005.

According to the Denver Post article the museum petitioned a Maryland county court to permit the estate to release the four works early before the formal transfer of ownership so it isn't so much deaccessioning as pre-deaccessioning. The works would be sold as a group to other museums. Once the museum owns the paintings the rules are clear that it can't sell art to boost its coffers. Although Still wanted his work to remain intact in a single collection, his wife had donated or sold several works after her husband's death, a precedent that the museum is using to justify the potential sale.

The museum ethics rules are in place to make sure that museum leaders do not sell artworks to balance budgets during crises but we've seen several university-related museums test the boundaries of these rules. The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University threatened to close and sell off its $350 million art trove but ended up with a plan to rent them instead. More recently Fisk University in Nashville received approval to sell off a share in its Stieglitz art collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas.

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New Jersey Museum Plans To Deaccession Pollock Piece

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

The economy seems to have prompted another museum to consider a major deaccessioning. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, New Jersey will sell 50 works from the museum's permanent collection. Christie's has prepared a prospectus for the pieces and predicts that the sale could bring in between $2.9 million and $4.3 million for the museum. Among the pieces for sale is a Jackson Pollock drawing valued at $300,000 to $500,000. The museum has said it will use the funds for future art purchases.

According to the Journal article the museum has been selling things off for a while. And last January, it shipped off its 6,000-volume art library as a gift to Montclair State University . The museum may sell its costume and rug collections next and the Native American artworks could also be in peril.

The Association of Art Museum Directors forbids museums from using the sale of art in their permanent collections to pay for general operating expenses or to underwrite loans but deaccessioning can be a way to refine a museum's focus, selling things that don't fit the vision to acquire things that do. But lately the continued paring down has the public, and potential donors, concerned. James Panero's article in the Journal seems to indicate that there are a variety of factors to consider in the Montclair Art Museum sale and that the reasons for this particular deaccessioning are far from cut and dried. Collections carefully put together over years and time represent a particular mission to both the museum and the community it serves and so care must be taken to make sure that the art itself just doesn't become any emergency bailout package.

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Indianapolis Museum of Art Creates Database of Deaccessioned Artwork

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Many museums are deaccessioning works of art but the Indianapolis Museum of Art is making it easy for potential buyers to find out which pieces will be up for sale. The museum has created a searchable database of recently deaccessioned artworks on its website. The list includes information on when a piece will be sold at auction, valuation, provenance and in some cases a picture of the piece. The deaccessioned works include coins, paintings and even pieces of vintage lace.

ArtDaily reports that the database is part of a whole new level of transparency for the museum. Later the database will be used to show how money raised by deaccessioned artworks will be used to buy new pieces by including links from deaccessioned works to new acquisitions (proceeds from deaccessioned works are used only to acquire other works of art and not used to pay operating expenses). The piece shown at right is a Madonna and Child on a wood panel which will be auctioned off as part of Christie's Interiors sale on June 26.

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