Charles Deas, “The Long Jakes, Rocky Mountain Man,” Denver Art Museum and Anschutz Collection
The Association of Art Museum Directors needs to revisit its entire policy on deaccessioning, as I recently recommended here.
This imperative seems all the more urgent in light of the statement released by AAMD today, implicitly criticizing what it described as “the Denver Art Museum’s unprecedented fractional deaccession of Charles Deas‘ painting, ‘Long Jakes,’ to a Denver philanthropist, Mr. Philip Anschutz, and its joint acquisition with Mr. Anschutz of Thomas Eakins‘ painting, ‘Cowboy Singing,’ from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.”
That Eakins was one of three of the artist’s works (the other two were oil sketches) sold by Philadelphia to help fund its purchase of the artist’s masterwork, “The Gross Clinic.” Denver purchased the sketches independently of Anschutz.
Here’s what AAMD said in today’s statement:
After a detailed review of the general issues involved in fractional deaccessions of works of art from a museum to a private party, the Board of AAMD strongly encourages member museums not to employ fractional deaccessions as a method of collections development. The nature of such transactions involves very complex issues and considerations. AAMD’s Professional Issues Committee, with suggestions from our members, is reviewing and will revise AAMD’s policy regarding deaccessioning to address the issue of partial deaccessioning to private parties.
The statement did not directly criticize Denver, which it credited for having “engaged in this unusual transaction with the full support of its Board of Trustees, relevant curatorial staff, and Mr. Anschutz to benefit the public by strengthening the Museum’s important collection of Western Art.”
I’m no fan of the Anschutz transaction. When it was announced last April, I strongly criticized the deal for allowing the public’s patrimony to go semi-private. Interestingly, the museum’s online information about the Deas makes no mention of its co-owner.
But I cannot remember AAMD’s ever taking a member to task for selling museum-quality works to raise money to buy other works: The association never made a peep, for example, about the highly controversial Albright-Knox disposals, which the museum had unpersuasively attempted to justify on the grounds of change-of-mission.
If AAMD deems it acceptable to sell an artwork to fund acquisitions, what’s so wrong about raising money for an acquisition by selling a work fractionally, so that the museum can still have opportunities to display it? To be sure, there are complexities involving proper care of the object and possible future resale of the fraction owned by the private party, but these can be dealt with contractually.
Such inconsistencies in AAMD’s thinking underscore the need for the association to revisit its deaccession guidelines, revising them to say that once a museum brings a work into the public domain, that work should not leave the public domain unless it truly doesn’t belong there (for reasons of inferior quality, poor condition, inauthenticity, issues of proper title, etc.).
Without scrupulously strict standards, it’s hard for the association to take the high ground against those critics who argue for the loosening of guidelines relating to art sales by museums.