Probably get in trouble for saying this...A post on the sale of art

Lately, as brought to my attention by a friend who is an alumna of Randolph College when it was Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, a 1912 painting by American Ashcan School artist George Bellows was sold to the National Gallery in London, bringing in $25.5 million dollars which was applied to the institutional endowment.  There's a good summary of the controversy here in Inside Higher Ed.

The issues here are complex.  When art is left to a college or university, it can be done in a number of ways.  Sometimes the work is actually given in trust, so that there are constraints on the gift.  Often when this happens it is because the donor wants the art to enhance the educational experience of the students, faculty, and community of the college.  It is not about giving money.  (However, even in these situations, because there is always a valuation for taxes, there's never the suggestion that art is without a monetary value...)  Sometimes, the works are given, as is the case with this work, without a trust; the college owned the work outright.  It was part of the collection in the Maier Museum on campus, however.  I suspect, although I do not know for sure, that this was done because at the time of gift it made sense to put such an important piece of art on display as part of the educational experience (which is way better than just sticking it in an administrative office for personal enjoyment) and the museum had the facilities to care and store it (convenience).  This clearly leads to a blurring of the ownership in question as the recommended policy by the College Art Association and the American Association of Museums (among others) is that artworks should be sold only to enhance collection acquisitions and maintenance in other art areas; the money should not leave the art institution but be put back in for new uses.  Sale of artwork is a legitimate way to invigorate a collection or to protect other holdings or to move the mission of the museum forward.

This is NOT a new issue.  This sale joins Brandeis's 2009 announcement that it would sell all 6,000 works art after severe financial hardships rocked their endowment; this proposed plan rocked the news for weeks, prompting lawsuits (under what conditions was the art held and were sales legal?) and indignation and retrenching on the position.  It joins pressure on the University of Iowa to sell their Jackson Pollock, insured at $140 million, to repair the institution after severe flooding.  And of course, we must add the issue of Detroit's Institute of Art collection and the city's bankruptcy.

At the heart of the issue is how we value art.  We value it for itself: for its ability to make us think or dream or cry, for its technical virtuosity or curiosity, for its passing through the life of a talented person, for its connection to our culture at a particular time and place. We value what we can learn from interacting with a work directly, rather than from a reproduction.  And yet! We live in a monetary economy where insurance and security and access all require monetary participation.  We have to also put a price on the art in order to participate in that world.  So while art is worth whatever some schmuck will pay for it, it's worth something in equivalent monetary terms.  There's also a tendency to look to that monetary value when we're desperate.  It's not possible to get the same value from almost anything else in the college's ownership.  No one wants old physics texts and selling land (something my graduate institution did a lot) makes you a real estate speculator (with other ramifications on your educational mission).

Do I wish Randolph College could have kept their Bellows (and the other works that no one talks about that were also slated for sale/have already been sold, including Edward Hicks' "A Peaceable Kingdom," Ernest Hennings' "Through the Arroyo" and Rufino Tamayo's "Troubador.”)?  You betcha.  I don't believe that art's monetary price is actually equivalent to its cultural value.  I cannot personally put a price on its cultural value; how much should inspiration cost? how much for outrage that makes us think?  I also believe that having the Bellows was a part of the experience for students that is irrevocably lost and that is tremendously sad.

Stressing that I have NO personal connection to the college and cannot adequately assess value because I believe there is also a value to college experience that can't be rendered in money, Randolph College may have made the sale more palatable for me in a couple of ways. 1) The sale went to the National Gallery of Art in London, a public institution with an educational mission.  Had the sale removed the work entirely from public access by selling to a private collector, I certainly would have felt differently.  One might even argue that removing it from the College is a boon in terms of sheer numbers of people who could see it now.  I'm not entirely convinced by the breadth-vs-depth argument but it is certainly there.  2) The College did work to establish a connection with the National Gallery that is beneficial on both sides: there will be lectures at the College by members of the museum community and students will have internship opportunities at the museum.  There is an educational value that goes with the Bellows piece.

And 3) which is the hardest for me:  $25.5 million dollars could buy a lot of educational experience that might not otherwise be had.  If I trusted the College, the good that could be done with the money in terms of scholarships/aid/enhanced programs, might be worth it.  I see students every year who leave after 1 year (or even 1 semester) having not gotten enough financial aid to make it.  This is a blow to their life experience that cannot be made up by 1 work of art, or even a whole museum.  If this money enhanced the College's ability to really be a stronger institution, it might be worth it.  (I say "if" and "trust" because there is plenty of suggestion that Randolph is struggling to find its footing, after its feeling that switching to co-education would solve all of its problems)

I can't advocate FOR selling art to solve monetary problems when that art is put into the public trust for public experience (different when it's a private collection).  But I have a hard time always arguing AGAINST.

An update--The AAMD sanctions the Meier Museum for monetizing its collection.