Free “Men of the Docks”!

George Bellows, “Men of the Docks,” 1912, Maier Museum
Shades of “Portrait of Wally.”
The four paintings from Randolph College’s Maier Museum that are tied up in legal limbo, due to an ongoing lawsuit seeking to prevent their sale at auction, are now being sequestered in storage by the would-be auctioneer, Christie’s, New York, according to the Lynchburg, VA, News & Advance.
In an update yesterday about the Maier Museum Four, the Christa Desrets reported [via] that opponents to the sale want the paintings back where they belong. But Randolph spokesperson Brenda Edson told Desrets:
We decided not to expose the paintings to the risk of unnecessary transport.
What about the need to expose the paintings, during this winter/spring 2008 semester, to the audience for which they were intended—the students, faculty and surrounding Lynchburg community?
Chances are that the chief risk that Randolph College is worried about is the campus outcry that would ensue if the paintings were returned and then uprooted once again.