The interior of the former home of Salander-O’Reilly Galleries
With art dealer Lawrence Salander having last week pled guilty to stealing some $120 million from clients and backers, his Salander-O’Reilly Galleries’ numerous creditors and high-and-dry consignors are engaged in a scramble to try to receive compensation from Salander assets for their financial losses and for works of art that got caught up in the bankruptcy. Bloomberg‘s Philip Boroff, who owns this story, reports on the plans to auction art from the gallery (possibly in June).
From this listing on the Sotheby’s International Realty website, it appears that the limestone mansion that formerly housed the gallery in baronial splender is still on the market for its original asking price—$75 million.
One of the gallery’s victims is the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As reported by Bob Warner of the Philadelphia Daily News, the museum has now filed a lawsuit against its insurer, AXA Art Insurance
Corp., for $1.5 million to compensate for loss of proceeds from two American paintings that it had consigned to Salander’s New York gallery. In its own court filing, the insurance company argues that this kind of loss is not covered under the museum’s policy.
The two paintings—a Prendergast and a Davies—were consigned to the gallery in 2006. (The gallery filed for bankruptcy in November 2008.)
2006? Was this a “Gross Clinic”-related deaccession? The answer is no, according to the Philadelphia Museum’s director of communications, Norman Keyes.
Norman informed me:
The decision to deaccession these two works was unrelated to [the purchase of the Philadelphia Museum’s $34-million half-share in] “The Gross Clinic.” The Davies was deaccessioned in 1988, and the Prendergast was deaccessioned in June 2006, and they were consigned to Salander O’Reilly together. We did not learn about the sale of “The Gross Clinic” until much later in 2006.
The Museum consulted the two major auction houses as well as dealers,
and at the time was convinced that Salander O’Reilly offered the most
advantageous terms.The decision conformed with our collections policy, which identifies
a number of ways in which the museum can sell a work of art and gives
the staff and trustees the flexibility to determine which option is best
in order to maximize value to the institution. The Museum’s current
policy is in keeping with the AAMD guidelines and does not preclude the
uses of dealers, although in principle we believe that auction is often
preferable…
…especially, as it turned out, in this instance.
Here’s the Prendergast that Philadelphia deaccessioned, which, as Warner of the Philly Daily News reports, was said to have been sold by Salander to another New York gallery (without compensation to the museum):
Maurice Prendergast, “The Harbor,” ca. 1918-1923, 24 5/16 x 30 ¼ in.
And here’s the one kept by the museum, which it regards as superior. (It’s certainly busier.):
Maurice Prendergast, “Sunday Promenade,” ca. 1914-15, 24 x 32 in., Philadelphia Museum of Art
Here’s the dispatched Davies which, Warner reports, “has apparently disappeared”:
Arthur B. Davies, “Mountain Landscape,” ca. 1925-1928, 26 x 40 in.
The Davies painting that was deemed by the museum to be superior to the one deaccessioned (and lost)—“Apuan, Many-Folded Mountains,”
1907, 26 x 40 inches—is not posted on the museum’s online collections database. (Only this one is.) I have twice requested a copy of the image of “Apuan” and will update here, if I receive it.
UPDATE: There is no available image of the “Apuan” Davies. The museum owns three Davies paintings and about 100 works on paper. It owns four Prendergast oils, four of his watercolors and one print.
Philadelphia wasn’t the only art museum that was mixed up in the Salander mess. As CultureGrrl readers remember, a Caravaggio, “Sleeping Cupid,” loaned by the Indianpolis Museum of Art for a planned temporary exhibition at the gallery (NOT for sale), was temporarily padlocked, by
court order, within the financially ruined gallery. In the initial court procedings, the museum’s demand for the painting’s immediate return “drew a chuckle from the judge, and loud guffaws from some of the other
lawyers,” according to this account in the NY Times.
Indianapolis eventually had the last laugh, however. I came upon (and photographed) “Cupid,” sleeping peacefully at home, when I visited the Indianapolis Museum last November:
Caravaggio, “Sleeping Cupid,” ca. 1595-96, Indianapolis Museum of Art
Speaking of bankruptcy, I’m just about to work on my taxes. It’s always a moment of great suspense when I total things up to find out which turns out to be more—my meager professional income or my business expenses.
You can lesson next year’s anxiety (and keep me blogging) by clicking my long-dormant “Donate” button. After all, I’ve just been interviewed by Sveriges Radio (Swedish public radio). I’m NOT kidding you (and I didn’t even have to learn Swedish for this). They think CultureGrrl is important!
Don’t you?