Three Toledo Museum of Art paintings will go on the auction block at New York-based Sotheby’s Tuesday night, a move leaders say will help to diversity its collection.
The three classical Impressionist paintings — Paul Cézanne’s Clairière (The Glade); Henri Matisse’s Fleurs ou Fleurs devant un portrait, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Nu s’essuyant — are expected to reach up to a combined sale of $64 million, which Artnet magazine called “the largest institutional deaccession of the season.”
The museum plans to invest the funds to add more "diverse" artwork to its permanent collection. But not everyone is happy about it.
Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight, who won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, wrote a commentary piece about the sale, calling it “unconscionable.”
Mr. Knight knows those three paintings well — from 1974 to 1975, Mr. Knight worked in TMA’s education department as a Nettie Poe Ketcham/National Endowment for the Arts Fellow.
In his op-ed, Mr. Knight criticized TMA leaders for succumbing to the for-profit art market, writing in part, “The for-profit market today leads much of the nonprofit museum world around by the nose. But the core museum mission is collecting, researching and preserving great art, and a conservative strategy of privatizing irreplaceable public assets in the name of liberal progress is backward.”
In a phone interview with The Blade, Mr. Knight said the museum is missing the point of what “diversity” really means.
“It has to come from an understanding of what diversity is. Diversity is achieved through addition, not through subtraction,” Mr. Knight said. “Removal of the works from the collection does nothing for diversity. There are ethical guidelines in the field that concern reasons for deaccession and increasing diversity is not among them.
“I am a huge supporter of diversifying collections, but this is just a quick fix. It’s a high-profile fix. One could say that it’s performative rather than substantive. It looks like you’re doing something, when the question remains are you really doing something by taking great works of art out of a collection.”
Toledo artist Penny Gentieu recently posted an open letter to the TMA trustees advising them not to go through with the planned sale. In the letter, Ms. Gentieu stated she believed current museum Director Adam Levine’s emphasis on diversity was a public relations move designed as damage control to stave off criticism when the museum refused to publicly take a stance on the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. Ms. Gentieu said she has not received a response from TMA about the letter.
“The Toledo Museum of Art has always been inclusive and diverse and free for all walks of life,” Ms. Gentieu said in an email. “The director, Adam Levine, made a colossal mistake after the George Floyd murder, telling the staff that they are remaining neutral. To cover up for his mistake, he dove headfirst into rebranding the Museum to be inclusive with diversity. So now his big plan to attract attention to himself is to sell off three great world-class paintings from our permanent collection.”
Museum leaders say the deaccession controversy is much ado about nothing.
Former TMA director John Stanley, who serves on the art committee of the museum board of trustees, said he thought the deaccession was “a brilliant idea” when it was presented by Mr. Levine. Mr. Stanley said deaccession is a serious process, not taken lightly.
“The deaccessioning process is very rigorous and very involved. It’s not a knee-jerk thing,” said Mr. Stanley, who previously served as director of both the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. “It’s a long process ultimately culminating with the Board’s approval to do such a thing. It makes sense to try to build the endowment for that collection so that in perpetuity it can continue to grow in light of the extraordinary prices in the art market. So I was very supportive [of the deaccession].”
Mr. Stanley doesn’t see the opposition to the sale, which begins at 7 p.m., as creating controversy.
“On this subject, there are always those in favor of it and those who are against it. I would say the majority of people are very much in favor, including unanimously the Board of Trustees,” he said.
Critics of deaccessioning, Mr. Stanley said, need to understand the museum’s collections and growth strategy.
“What’s their understanding of how these three paintings, in particular, relate to other paintings or objects by those artists in our collection,” he said. “Do they understand that this museum looks for singular works of art and does not necessarily collect deeply into a given artist’s history? In each case of these three artists, we have extraordinary works by them.”
Mr. Levine emphasized that despite the deaccession, TMA still has artworks by all three artists in its permanent collection that are considered superior works to the pieces being auctioned. Citing the museum’s Collections Management Policy, Mr. Levine emphasized that deaccession has been a part of TMA since its founding.
“The Toledo Museum of Art has had 11 directors and 9 of them have deaccessioned,” Mr. Levine said. “Deaccessioning has been a part of the Toledo Museum of Art’s history basically since its founding. Edward Drummond Libbey allowed it in his will by design, Florence Scott Libbey allowed it in her will by design and we have always sought to upgrade our works and to retain works of the highest quality. This deaccessioning effort is about retaining only the highest quality and the proceeds will only be used for acquisition.”
Mr. Levine acknowledged the deaccessioning had its detractors but said the decision was the right one.
“There are people who disagree with this decision and that is their right,” he said. “This has been a thoughtful, judicious, and rigorous process which aligns with Toledo Museum of Art history and the fact that the board of directors unanimously endorsed it, I think that conveys a degree of thought and care about this decision and the way it will advantage the Toledo Museum of Art and the Toledo community for the next 120 years.”
Mr. Stanley agreed.
“This is the world we live in,” Mr. Stanley said. “We have to be conscious of what’s going on in the world as an art museum and what we need to do to change and evolve to adapt to it.”
First Published May 16, 2022, 1:00 p.m.
