Another Eakins: Going, Going, Gone
Portrait of Professor Benjamin H. Rand/Thomas Eakins — Photo: Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia
Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia has sold another Eakins. This time it's the 1874 Portrait of Professor Benjamin H. Rand, which went for a reported $20 million or so to Alice Walton's still-under-construction Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. Jefferson is the same medical school that sold the great Eakins canvas The Gross Clinic earlier this year in a joint deal to both the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
It's a loss for Philadelphia, no doubt. But can Jefferson really be blamed? I have a piece on the general phenomenon of de-accessioning coming up in the issue of Time that appears on newstands tomorrow, so I won't go into the ins and outs of the entire issue here. But it's worth noting that though the American Association of Museums (AAM) has guidelines that discourage deaccessioning for the purpose of funneling money into a school's general revenues, as Jefferson is doing with the millions from its Eakins sales, Jefferson does not actually have a campus museum, at least not in the way that, say, Yale, Harvard or Fisk all do. Much of its collection consists of portraits of distinguished faculty hung in various hallways. (In 1982, the school's three canvases by Eakins were moved to their own gallery, however, along a with a few other pieces.)
I put in a call this morning to Lisa Tremper Hanover, the president of the Association of College and University Museums and Galleries, an AAM affiliate, to see if Jefferson was in a different category from other schools with a clearly established on-campus museum. She agreed readily that it was. As a consequence, she said, the school was freer to dispose of its holdings as it saw fit.
For the record, Hanover, who is director of the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College, is not somebody who takes de-accessioning lightly. So wherever you are Philip and Muriel, rest easy.
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It deserves to be said again. Shame on you, Thomas Jefferson University for selling Philadelphia's art heritage to a persistent and extremely wealthy buyer. Thomas Eakins', Portrait of Professor Benjamin Rand is headed to Dixie. Its new home will be the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. Come on Jefferson University, why not get over it and announce whatever else is up for grabs in this artistic flea market. Philadelphians take their local, "boys done good" seriously, and the loss of another of Eakins' paintings raises more animosity than the War Between the States. Alice Walton has an admirable project in mind in the development of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Its fruition however should not be realized at Philadelphia's expense. Much to Ms. Walton's credit, her persistence and tenacity is admired. It takes a lot of Southern charm, in the form of Yankee Dollars to pry open the art vault at the venerable Jefferson. Why is it, this authors feels that the charm will continue to exude as the university liquidates its local treasures of the brush. Now Doctors and esteemed Jefferson board members, Philadelphia is very wise to the carpet bagging profiteering that is taking place behind closed surgical doors. The issue is no longer about Thomas Eakins and his works. The issue is institutional trust. While Thomas Jefferson University has shamelessly engaged in a local public relations battle with all Philadelphians, the public will suffer a defeat over a collection of canvases, but Jefferson will fall victim to institutional barbarism and plundering. When will the sales stop? How many empty walls need to be revealed before this artistic carnage is ended? Only Jefferson University knows the answer to these questions. Be forewarned Philadelphians…there will be more Confederate dollars making their way up the I-95 corridor before this is all over. In a previous blog, I reported that the Visigoths were invading Philadelphia by way of the Schuylkill expressway. I was wrong. Confederate opportunists are marching towards the cultural institutions on the Ben Franklin Parkway, they are well armed with sawbucks and they have targets in their minds. If Philadelphians think Jefferson University will hold fast our colors, they are widely mistaken. Jefferson has already fallen back, taken the plunder and is marching towards the sea. If the battle over institutional trust needs to be fought in Philadelphia's artistic bivouac…the reality is this. The South will rise again!
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