A trial court in Indiana recently dismissed a lawsuit challenging the proposed sale of three works of art by Valparaiso University: Rust Red Hills by Georgia O’Keefe, Mountain Landscape by Frederic Edwin Church, and The Silver Veil and the Golden Gate by Childe Hassam. This controversy highlights many of the issues surrounding the deaccession of art by American museums. In ruling that the former director of the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso and the museum’s key benefactor both lacked standing to sue the university over the planned sale, the decision tracked other recent results about non-profit oversight, highlighting just how critical the engagement of a state’s Attorney General is.
Whatever the merits of this rule on standing are, however, the university seems to be violating a condition of the 1953 agreement it made to obtain these works of art, yet nine months on the Attorney General has not exercised his undisputed prerogative to stop it. Non-profit governance is hard in a world of finite charitable resources. But universities caught in the arms race of new dorms and laboratories would do well to consider the core mission and what makes it possible. The chance to sit with a painting by Hassam, Church, or O’Keefe was well recognized by the original benefactor Percy Sloan, and this university agreed to abide by that condition. It should keep its word. Selling art to plug budget holes is like eating the seed corn; it robs the future.
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Topics:
Rose Art Museum,
Supreme Judicial Court,
Deaccessioning,
New York Times,
Brandeis University,
Berkshire Museum,
Frederic Edwin Church,
Attorney General,
Mountain Landscape,
The Silver Veil and the Golden Gate,
Georgia O'Keefe,
Childe Hassam,
Rust Red Hills,
Breuer Museum of Art,
Percy Sloan,
Junius Sloan,
Sara Sloan,
Justice David Lowy,
Todd Rokita,
José Padilla
The Single Justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court (Joseph A. Trainor) has extended the injunction against the Berkshire Museum's proposed sale of 40 works of art in its collection until at least January 29, 2018. In its order today in response to the Attorney General's status report, the justice stated:
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Topics:
Berkshire Museum,
Attorney General,
Maura Healey,
Single justice,
Massachusetts Appeals Court,
Joseph A. Trainor
Sullivan & Worcester LLP has filed an appeal on behalf of its clients, the members of the Berkshire Museum who sued to enjoin the museum’s sale of 40 works of art and sculpture. The appeal is brought as a result of the Berkshire County Superior Court’s November 7, 2017 denial of their request for an injunction, and dismissal of the case (before the Appeals Court utlimately enjoined the sale until at least December). That Superior Court order denied not only the members’ request, but also a motion by another group that include Norman Rockwell’s sons and the motion by Attorney General Maura Healey to pause the sale originally scheduled for November 13, 2017 at Sotheby’s in New York—a sale that would have included Rockwell’s Shuffleton’s Barbershop and other masterpieces.
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Topics:
Norman Rockwell,
Sullivan & Worcester LLP,
Sotheby's,
Nicholas M. O'Donnell,
Berkshire Museum,
Zenas Crane,
Shuffleton’s Barbershop,
Attorney General,
Maura Healey,
Berkshire County Superior Court
Attorney General’s Motion, Supported by Private Plaintiffs, is Allowed on the Eve of Auction
The Massachusetts Appeals Court has stopped the imminent auction of paintings owned by the Berkshire Museum. Late Friday, a single justice of the Appeals Court issued the following order:
ORDER: After reviewing the parties' submissions, the request for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the defendant, Trustees of the Berkshire Museum from selling, auctioning, or otherwise disposing of any of the artworks that have been listed for auction commencing on November 13, 2017, is allowed. The balance of the risk of irreparable harm to the petitioner and the respondent in light of each party's chance of success on the merits weighs in favor of the petitioner.
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Topics:
Nicholas M. O'Donnell,
Pittsfield,
Berkshire Museum,
Attorney General,
Maura Healey
