Let’s set the record straight on the situation at Valparaiso University and President Jose Padilla’s efforts to sell the three most valuable works in the collection to renovate residence halls for first students.
This effort, if successful, will violate a trust that the University has honored for over 70 years.
Successful or not, it has sullied the reputation of a museum I and many others have devoted ourselves to building into something excellent and beautiful that truly honors Percy Sloan’s gift to us — that is, to Valparaiso University and to Northwest Indiana.
To suggest otherwise is false.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Rust Red Hills” seen through Richard Hunt’s stainless steel “Becoming” at the Brauer Museum of Art on the Valparaiso University campus in Valparaiso, Indiana on Friday, February 10, 2023. Campus and community members continue to react to the pending sale of O’Keeffe’s and two other works to fund first-year student dorm renovations. (Andy Lavalley for the Post-Tribune)
In legal papers filed in Porter County Superior Court, the University suggests I somehow led the collection committee and Percy Sloan’s trustee, Chicago attorney Louis Miller, astray in convincing them to purchase two of the three works they want to sell — Georgia O’Keeffe’s Rust Red Hills and Childe Hassam’s The Silver Veil and the Golden Gate.
This is preposterous. It’s not only false but it defames me. It’s not enough that they ruin the reputation of the museum that bears my name, but now they want to ruin my reputation. The collection committee minutes are in the University Archives. Anyone interested in the true narrative will find it there.
Percy Sloan was an art educator who intended his gift in honor of his parents to be used for educational purposes. Valparaiso University accepted the gift and has abided by the terms of the trust agreement for 70 years. To sell our three most valuable works to renovate dorms would be a misuse of his endowment and a violation of the trust agreement.
To say the end here justifies the means is wrong.
“The Silver Vale and the Golden Gate” by Childe Hassam at the Brauer Museum of Art on the Valparaiso University campus in Valparaiso, Indiana on Friday, February 10, 2023. Campus and community members continue to react to the pending sale of O’Keeffe’s and two other works to fund first-year student dorm renovations. (Andy Lavalley for the Post-Tribune)
The University claims the Childe Hassam painting the University acquired in 1967 was purchased under my influence inappropriately. They hired experts to say it is not “conservative art” such as was Sloan’s stated preference. Were the museum open, anyone could see that the Hassam painting isn’t an outlier. It is, in fact, a cornerstone of a great collection of American impressionist art that Percy Sloan himself gave us.
As is the case with the Georgia O’Keeffe painting, which was purchased by a committee with oversight by the trustee, the only member of the committee with veto power. It became the cornerstone of our collection of modern American art which was already being built when I was hired, as the Hassam was the cornerstone of our American impressionist collection, as the Frederic Church painting was the cornerstone of our collection of Hudson Valley school painters.
Why did Valparaiso University close the museum? Why did they fire Jonathan Canning? Here’s a theory: last summer, Canning, realizing that this year would mark the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibit in Paris, began planning an exhibit of American impressionist work for this summer. He entitled it “America the Beautiful.” It is indeed a beautiful exhibit of American Impressionist painters, almost entirely from Percy Sloan’s own collection. It includes works by Robert Reid, Pauline Palmer, Karl Anderson, Edgar Payne, Frank Dudley and other regional painters mostly painting in the impressionist mode. Percy Sloan had a great eye for American impressionist art and Valparaiso University was the beneficiary of his taste and his great generosity.
Brauer Museum of Art director and curator Jonathan Canning points out a tear caused when someone tried to steal the piece “Fifth Avenue, Noon” as he points out criteria for deaccessioning art in an exhibit at the museum on Thursday, April 6, 2023. (Kyle Telechan for the Post-Tribune)
It’s a terrible shame people in this community cannot enjoy that exhibit.
It is a horrible waste, and it sends a clear message to this community, to future donors locally and nationally, that this administration cannot be trusted to honor their gifts.
Closing the museum and dismissing the current director, Jonathan Canning, also violates the trust. The trust agreement is clear, the university committed itself to making the collection available for viewing by the general public, which we did for 70-plus years, with one interruption caused by the pandemic. We committed ourselves to hire someone with professional expertise to care for the collection. Jonathan Canning was that professional in spades. No director prior to Canning had more training or less support and now he is gone, which is a terrible shame.
The university claims the three works they want to sell have become too valuable to secure. We kept them secure for 70 years; has Valparaiso University and this region become too dangerous a place to have great works of art for educational purposes such as Percy Sloan intended?
I don’t think so.
Richard Brauer was the founding director of Valparaiso University’s Brauer Museum of Art.
