College Museum Sanctioned for Selling Art to Boost Endowment

The Association of Art Museum Directors has sanctioned the Maier Museum of Art at Virginia’s Randolph College for selling a painting to increase the college’s endowment, The Art Newspaper and The News & Advance of Lynchburg, Va. report.

The association, which represents more than 230 North American museums, asked members last week to suspend loans and collaborations with the Maier over the $25.5-million sale last month of a 1912 work by U.S. painter George Bellows to the National Gallery of Art in London.

The sale was the second of four authorized by Randolph College trustees in 2007 to boost the Lynchburg campus’s endowment. The Maier is not a member of the association, which opposes deaccessioning of works by institutions to raise operational funds, and which censured the Virginia museum over a previous sale in 2008.

Randolph College President Bradley Bateman said the penalty would have little impact on the campus museum and he expects trustees to approve the remaining two sales. “Like most members of the Randolph community, I am sad that we had to sell the painting. However, I have no doubt that we did the right thing in support of our mission, which is to provide our expanding liberal arts education to young people,” he said.