Bloomberg Reports: Lauder Selling Three Schieles to Bankroll “Adele”

So you thought Ronald Lauder was dipping into his own fortune to pay the entire purchase price of Klimt‘s “Adele Bloch-Bauer I”?
Think again.
Did the Neue Galerie’s board know in advance that Lauder’s megabucks purchase commitment would result in the sale of three Schieles that had been displayed at the museum earlier this year? And why was the board’s approval needed for the sale, if the works are all privately owned by Lauder?
Those are just two of the questions raised by this surprising development, reported by Bloomberg’s Lindsay Pollock. Assuming her report is accurate, the exact nature of the public/private partnership between the Neue Galerie and its chief benefactor urgently needs public clarification.
I’m getting “Verklempt Over Klimt” all over again: Just three months ago, CultureGrrl reported that Lauder told me “he had no intention of selling the works [that he owned] at the Neue Galerie [which constitute some 80 percent of its holdings] and that the foundation was backed by ‘enough money for the next 200 years.'”
How quickly intentions change.
Meanwhile, Ronald’s brother Leonard, chairman of the Whitney Museum, “declined to be interviewed” for Robin Pogrebin’s article in tomorrow’s NY Times, which states that the museum “has all but decided that moving its expansion to another site [the High Line, downtown] would make more sense” than building the long-planned Renzo Piano-designed expansion, which would have been added onto the museum’s existing facility.
And all this confusion of purpose on Halloween eve. Trick or treat?