Todd, who had expressed his concerns about the NYPL art sale back when it was announced, has a post up with his thoughts on today's news. He concludes by noting that I'm not as upset about Walton's purchase of Kindred Spirits as he is, which is probably correct, but doesn't mean I'm not upset at all. The NYPL may have been perfectly within its rights to sell the work, and it's understandable that they want the decision to focus on their core mission. But in light of how the work came to them, they did have an ethical responsibility of sorts to the donor - not absolute, but real nonetheless. Todd is right to say that the NYPL's statement was little more than spin. It's true (or seems so) that the work will remain here and in a museum; but if a (say) Russian tycoon had offered an even greater sum, was the Library going to turn it down?
Part of the outrage gap between Todd and I no doubt lies in the fact that he's a New Yorker and I'm not. If, through some strange series of events, RISD were to announce it was going to sell Le Repos, you can bet I'd be howling. But New York to Arkansas isn't going to stir much emotion on my part, especially given that it will remain on view.
It may be, as Todd fears, that the Walmart Museum will be "consistently curated to make didactic, patriotic arguments"; certainly one won't expect the cutting edge. I suppose my assumption was that the Walton's plans were for a more traditional sort of buying of respectibility. Done with a Southern accent, of course, but still more in the time-honored way that newly great fortunes have used art to achieve status. Walton and Durand are not more of an odd couple than the Fords and Diego Rivera, after all. In both instances, the tycoons have at some level the same motivations; kindred spirits, you might say.
Todd's aesthetic concerns may be more justified, it's hard to know. But given the artists the Times says Walton is pursuing - Homer, Hopper, and that intriguing newcomer, Martin Johnson Meade - I'm not sure that the idea is to fill it with kitschy "Western" art and the like. Again, it seems more like old-fashioned striving, going after the traditional classics of American art. If the Durand deserves better, it may be more in that Walton will probably find it difficult to surround it with works of similar quality. Those are rare at any price.
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