Time to Sell the Family Jewels, Detroit

THE DAILY BEAST
By Nick Gillespie

Photo by Joshua Lott/Reuters

MICHIGAN---Saddled with billions in debt, there's no good reason the city shouldn't sell its art collection worth as much as $866 million. If you really want to make jaws drop in polite conversation, don’t waste your time suggesting that bankrupt Detroit merely stiff its pensioners and creditors harder than John Holmes did his costars in 1976’s Tell Them Johnny Wadd Is Here. Instead, suggest that the city unload its little-seen yet high-valued art collection hiding in plain sight at The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). As urban theorist Joel Kotkin has put it, “We get it wrong. We think the cultural amenities drives the prosperity [in cities], when it’s really the prosperity that drives the cultural amenities.” [link]

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Foundations Should Not Save Detroit, Including the Institute of Arts

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

"Madonna and Child" by Giovanni Bellini is one of the works in the Detroit Institute of Arts collection.

There are 92,000 reasons why Foundations should not bailout the City of Detroit and the Detroit Institute of Art. All 92,000 are local millionaires, but regrettably Foundations are being pressured to foot the bill of $500 million needed as part of the city’s bankruptcy proceedings. Foundation dollars should not be used to cover municipal or institutional debts. Besides, there is too much other work yet to be done in Detroit to use up 50% of Foundation annual giving on one arts project. On the other hand, local millionaires like A. Paul Schaap, who pledged $5 million; plus the state's taxpayers can and should make this happen, and make it happen quickly.

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Documentary “Detroit Art City” Highlights Financial Crisis at DIA

THE MORNING SUN

"Annunciatory Angel" (1450/1455) by Fra Angelico, a Dominican monk.

MICHIGAN---While the fate of the art collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts is threatened with sale in the city bankruptcy, a new documentary premiering Wednesday sheds light onto the history of one of the top comprehensive art museums on the country. The Detroit Public Television documentary “Detroit Art City,” premiering at 9 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 11, on WTVS-Channel 56, will provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on the museum. The documentary also will stream live at www.dptv.org/dia. The 60-minute “Detroit Art City” takes viewers behind the scenes at the DIA to trace the museum’s triumphs and challenges through the years. [link]

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Christie’s Reveals Detroit Art Appraisal: $866 Million

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Randy Kennedy

“Death on a Pale Horse” (1796) by Benjamin West; Credit 
Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund

MICHIGAN---The heart of the world-class collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts would raise somewhere between $452 million and $866 million if sold to help the City of Detroit dig its way out of bankruptcy, Christie’s said Wednesday, announcing the results of a highly anticipated appraisal. Christie’s examination was limited to works that were bought entirely or in part with city funds, because those works could be sold more easily than donated works, for example, whose sale could generate legal challenges. So the appraisal covers only a small part of the collection in terms of numbers — less than 5 percent of the museum’s 66,000 works — but many of the works are among the most important in the collection, by artists like Bruegel, Matisse and van Gogh. While Christie’s did not release estimates for individual works, it did note that 11 works — which it did not name — accounted for 75 percent of the total estimate in its report. [link]

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Detroit Institute of Arts Discovers Rare Painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo at Area University

ARTDAILY

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Infant Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness, ca. 1655–1670,
oil on canvas, 85 x 72 cm. © Meadow Brook Hall, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan.

MICHIGAN---A chance visit to Meadow Brook Hall by a curator from the Detroit Institute of Arts has led to the rediscovery of a significant work by a 17th-century Spanish artist and a unique learning opportunity for Oakland University (OU) art students. Salvador Salort-Pons, DIA executive director of Collection Strategies and Information, and curator of European paintings, was at Meadow Brook Hall in February presenting a lecture when a painting in a dark corner of the room caught his eye; it turned out to be a work by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo entitled "The Infant Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness." Murillo, who was known for his genre scenes and religious works, created the painting around 1670. [link]

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Detroit Institute of Arts Amends Donor Policy to Protect Future Gifts

THE ART NEWSPAPER
By Julia Halperin and Helen Stoilas

MICHIGAN---The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) director Graham Beal writes in his September letter this week that selling any part of the art collection to cover the bankrupt city’s debts “would be tantamount to closing the museum”. The museum is taking a further step in protecting its collection, Beal tells The Art Newspaper, and plans to amend its donor policy to safeguard future gifts from being sold to pay down the city’s $18b debt. “We are inserting into our deed of gift a line stating that from any sale of the work, the proceeds can only be used to buy more art,” says the DIA’s director. University- or city-owned museums are vulnerable to forced sales because they are owned or operated by a governing body whose mission extends beyond that of the museum itself. [link]

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