Sale of Rockwell bequest splits US art world
Norman Rockwell liked the Berkshire Museum. In the 1950s, it was the first to display his work – a time when his illustrations delighted America but were scorned by the art elite.
Rockwell donated arguably his two finest paintings to the museum, and was friends with its director.
But now, almost 40 years after his death, the museum wants to cash in on Rockwell’s gift – a decision that has angered his family, thrown a grenade into the sleepy artistic community of Berkshire County, and shaken the art world.
“There is not a museum director in the United States who has not stepped forward and said this is an appalling thing to do,” said Michael Keating, a Boston-based lawyer involved in the case. “The reaction from the museum world has been explicit, and it’s been outrage.”
Elizabeth Mcgraw, the president of the museum’s board, defended the sale, saying it “held the promise of addressing our museum’s serious financial difficulties”.
The saga began in July, when the trustees of the museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, voted to sell off – or “deaccession”, in artistic parlance – 40 of the museum’s works, including the two Rockwells, by far the most valuable pieces in their hands. The sale was intended to generate $50million (£38million), with Rockwell’s 1950 piece Shuffleton’s Barbershop alone expected to fetch around $20million (£15million).
It was a prospect that deeply saddened Rockwell’s three sons – Jarvis, a visual artist; Thomas, author of children’s books and Peter, a sculptor.
“I used to get my hair cut in that barber shop,” said Thomas Rockwell, sitting in his home in New York State. “It wasn’t the cleanest place. But he was a wonderful old man.”
Mr Rockwell, 84, agrees with his brothers that it is the finest of his father’s work. And, of course, he was alive when it was painted – although he recalled finding his father’s studio a rather dull place as a child.
“I think the Barbershop is wonderful,” he said. The painting, he said, was handed over so it could be on public display.
The trustees’ decision to sell sparked a rash of lawsuits. Local citizens joined in, with some adding their names to the suit and others staging noisy protests outside the museum, as well as Sotheby’s in New York – the auction house that planned to sell the works last week. On Nov 10, three days before the auction, the Massachusetts Appeal Court blocked the sale – giving the state’s attorney general until December to complete her investigation into the legality.
The museum and Sotheby’s argue that it is perfectly legal, and essential for the struggling museum to fund its proposed updates. Following the Appeal Court’s decision, the museum filed legal papers claiming the delay in the sale “has already put the museum at risk”.
Such sales would be prohibited in the UK, where museums are governed by the ethics code of the Museums Association, which states that, barring extraordinary circumstances, “it is unacceptable for a museum to select items for disposal with the principal aim of generating income”.
New York, uniquely among the states, similarly bars the sale of museum works unless they are sold to purchase another art work.
Nicholas O’donnell, a Boston-based lawyer working on the case, described it as “very, very unusual”.
“Museums very rarely even propose to do anything like this,” Mr O’donnell said. “Most museums struggle financially – it’s hard. But their financial statements do not include the value of the art in their collections as they are not considered assets.”
He said other museums had attempted to assist the Berkshire Museum, coming forward to offer guidance on ways to raise further funds without selling the works. But he said they had been rebuffed. The sale, he said, would be “counterproductive”, explaining: “it would mean that the museum had significantly less art, and would mean that no one would ever give to the museum again.”
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are among the biggest collectors of Rockwells, and held a joint exhibition of their collection at the Smithsonian in Washington DC in 2010.
Lucas was last year revealed as the mystery bidder who paid $46million (£35million) for Rockwell’s Saying Grace in 2013 – the most expensive Rockwell ever sold. Rockwell’s granddaughter Abigail, a jazz singer, has appealed to Lucas to step in and buy Shuffleton’s Barbershop, if the sale goes ahead.
The family does still own several Rockwells, but all are in the Norman Rockwell Museum, in Stockbridge, some 15 miles from the Berkshire Museum. Mr Rockwell believes his father would have been stunned by the sums of money at stake – and saddened by the conflict.
“He hated confrontation,” he said. “He probably just would have gone back to his studio, and carried on with his painting.”
‘The sale would mean the museum had less art and no one would ever give to it again’