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11/11/2017 1:16 pm  #1


Court Blocks Berkshire Museum’s Sale of Rockwell Works and Other Art

Court Blocks Berkshire Museum’s Sale of Rockwell Works and Other Art



The Massachusetts Appeals Court on Friday blocked a much-anticipated auction next week of art from the Berkshire Museum, including two paintings by Norman Rockwell.

Those works — including one titled “Shuffleton’s Barbershop,” with an estimated price of $20 million to $30 million — are among seven from the Pittsfield, Mass., museum that were scheduled to be offered for sale Monday by Sotheby’s in New York in an effort to raise money the museum considers essential to its survival.

The sale had been opposed by two groups of plaintiffs, including Rockwell’s sons, as well as the office of the Massachusetts attorney general, which had been seeking additional time to examine the museum’s plan. The attorney general, Maura Healey, had asked the court on Friday for an injunction halting the sale.

The court granted that request, writing that the museum was prohibited “from selling, auctioning, or otherwise disposing of any of the artworks that have been listed for auction.” The court indicated that, by selling nearly all of its valuable art, the museum would violate several trusts and a promise to Rockwell.

The injunction will expire on Dec. 11, but the court added that the attorney general’s office may move to extend it.

Sotheby’s had described the Berkshire Museum works as a “superb collection” that was “among the highlights” of its American Art sale on Monday.

In addition to “Shuffleton’s Barbershop,” which Sotheby’s said Rockwell created for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1950, the auction was to include Rockwell’s “Blacksmith’s Boy — Heel and Toe (Shaftsbury Blacksmith Shop),” which was estimated to have a price of $7 million to $10 million.

Among other museum works to be offered on Monday were “The White Dress” by Thomas Wilmer Dewing, “Hunter in Winter Wood” by George Henry Durrie and “Connecticut River Valley, Claremont, New Hampshire” by Albert Bierstadt.

Last summer, the financially strapped museum announced the planned sale of 40 works, including Impressionist and modern art, contemporary art, 19th-century European paintings, American art and Chinese art. The museum said the proceeds were needed to build its endowment, renovate its building and expand programming to create a “heightened emphasis on science and history.”

Officials from the museum and from Sotheby’s said they were disappointed by the decision.

Elizabeth McGraw, the president of the museum’s board of trustees called the court decision a “setback” for the institution and its neighbors.

“The auction that held the promise of addressing our museum’s serious financial difficulties will have to proceed without our works, and our plans for the future will be delayed,” she said in a written statement. “Until that process resolves, we will continue to do what we do every day: bring our passion for art, science and discovery to our community.”

The auction house confirmed that Monday’s auction would go forward with the rest of more than 70 works that have been slated for sale.

“We have never doubted that the board of trustees acted in good faith and was well within their legal rights,” Sotheby’s said in a statement, “and we remain confident that they will prevail in their plans to ensure a bright future for the Berkshire Museum in support of the community of Pittsfield and western Massachusetts.”

Michael B. Keating, a lawyer for the Rockwell family and others seeking to stop the sale, said his clients fully supported the decision that blocked the auction of the museum items and “the irreparable harm that would occur if these paintings were to be sold.”

Museum organizations have condemned the museum’s deaccessioning plan, saying it violated guidelines against the sale of art to subsidize operating and other expenses instead of using such proceeds to enhance or maintain a collection.

Rockwell’s sons and a group of museum members sued separately to stop the sale. But Judge John A. Agostini of Berkshire Superior Court found that they lacked legal standing. Judge Agostini also denied a request by the attorney general to block the sale.

The state’s lawyers told the appeals court on Friday that the museum was looking to sell nearly all of its valuable art. Doing so would violate a number of trusts, they said, including what they described as a promise to Rockwell that his works would remain in the permanent collection and another pledge that some of the works slated for auction would never leave Pittsfield.

“This sale is unprecedented in terms of the number, value and prominence of the works being proposed, the centrality of these works to the museum’s collection, and the process the museum employed to select and dispose of the deaccessioned items,” the attorney general’s office said in its filing on Friday.

The lower court had described the attorney general’s office as a “reluctant warrior,” whose objections had not included specific details on how it would review the planned sale. It noted that a delay would have “considerable financial consequences” for the museum. It did not find that the museum had violated any of the charitable trusts through which it had come into possession of the art.

The attorney general’s office countered in its filing on Friday that while the museum could sell the works in the future, any items disposed of at auction would be very difficult to get back. It said the museum had not abided by its most pressing mission — to preserve its charitable purpose — and that whatever the financial hurdles, its relationship to other museums and with donors would be damaged by the sale.
  


We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists. 
 

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