No Auction at Christie's
The Virginia Supreme Court filed an injunction recently to halt the New York-based Christie’s auction house from selling a few famous paintings in the collection of Randolph College in Virginia.
A small, liberal-arts college in Lynchburg, Virginia, Randolph College needed to raise some cash to boost its endowment as well as to maintain accreditation. The Maier Museum of Art had no restrictions on the sale of these paintings, 2 of which were donated and 2 of which were purchased by the college, presumably during flusher times.
So how was the Virginia Supreme Court convinced that they had a dog in this fight anyway?
What the Associated Press story won’t tell you is that the court case was brought by Jenna Dodge, Sarah Hassmer, Laura McKean-Peraza, Klesey McCune, Jennifer C. Mullins, Alice Dammeyer Priebe and Roy Clinton Johns, Randolph College is also known as Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.
The lawsuit goes beyond accusing Randolph-Macon of “destroying” its art collection by the sale of these four paintings, the lawsuit also accuses the College of defying tradition by becoming co-educational instead of the single-sex college it has been since its inception in 1904.
In a curious legal document, the Appellants, Ms. Dodge et al say: “In the evening of October 1 [2007] after almost everyone had left the Maier Museum, the police barricaded the road by the Museum, telling passers-by that there was a bomb threat; telephone and computer access to the Museum was cut-off; a moving van backed up to the Maier Museum; and Four Paintings were secreted away in this manner so that no court would have time to act to prevent them from being taken to New York.” The four paintings secreted out were Ruffino Tamayo’s Troubador, A Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks, Through the Arroyo by Ernest Martin Hennings, and the alleged cornerstone of the collection, Men of the Docks by American artist George Bellows.
Motivations?
So are the folks pursuing this endeavor passionate art lovers who don’t want the college to sell the paintings, or are they really annoyed about the college becoming co-ed? Change comes better in small increments, especially in small towns and it sounds to me like that’s part of what is going on here. Too much change, too fast. I also think that small towns tend to value their assets because they have fewer of them.
While it is heartening that a group has formed to pursue keeping these works, they are also adding legal fees to the already financially strapped college. At some point the question must be asked, would the sale of these paintings save the college? Or would it begin a cycle of asset liquidation that ultimately leaves a hollow shell of a school culturally? My guess is that since there are no legal restrictions on the sale of these paintings, it is the duty of a good capitalist society to let these paintings be sold to the highest bidder at Christie’s as they were about to be.
It is of course the legal right of Dodge et al to pursue a case that I (and all colleges with cultural and art properties) will be watching with great interest.
Source: Supreme Court of Virginia Record No. 071248, Jenna Dodge et al vs. The Trustees of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College
