Valparaiso University filed a petition Tuesday to move forward with the auction of the three cornerstone works of art from the Brauer Museum to fund freshman dorm renovations, while also noting a $9 million deficit and a declining student population.
The petition, filed before Porter Superior Court Michael Fish, cites the ongoing cost of storing the artwork and the inability to display the pieces in the museum securely among the additional reasons to auction it off. The artworks were put into storage in September.
In an email to the campus community Tuesday morning, VU President José Padilla said the university had filed the petition and pledged to update the campus once the court makes a ruling.
A visitor walks among paintings, including Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Rust Red Hills” (right) at the Brauer Museum of Art on the Valparaiso University campus in Valparaiso, Indiana Friday February 10, 2023. Campus and community members continue to react to announcement of the pending sale of O’Keeffe’s and two other works to fund first-year student dorm renovations. (Andy Lavalley for the Post-Tribune)
“We will continue to take steps that we believe are in the best interest of all our students, in support of our mission and the University’s future — our highest priorities,” Padilla said in the email.
The paintings are “Mountain Landscape” by Frederic E. Church; “Rust Red Hills” by Georgia O’Keeffe; and “The Silver Veil and Golden Gate” by Frederick Childe Hassam. The university claims in its petition that the O’Keeffe and Hassam paintings don’t fit with the collection as established by Sloan and that Richard Brauer, the museum’s namesake and founder, knew as much when he authorized the purchase of the O’Keeffe in 1962. The purchase of the Hassam followed five years later.
That suggestion outraged John Ruff, a senior professor of English who has a deep involvement with the Brauer Museum and its founder.
“The Silver Vale and the Golden Gate” by Childe Hassam at the Brauer Museum of Art on the Valparaiso University campus in Valparaiso, Indiana Friday February 10, 2023. Campus and community members continue to react to announcement of 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 ‘expert opinions’ offered by the University at the University’s expense on what ‘conservative art’ is and is not is totally bogus,” Ruff said in an email to the Post-Tribune, adding that the “conservative” style of painting is a relative term.
“For Sloan, ‘conservative’ meant ‘objective art,’ and the only painting the trustee ever vetoed was a non-objective work of geometric abstraction,” Ruff wrote. “Richard Brauer was a genius and is a saint; this petition defames him. At one it suggests that faculty and administrators who built the collection may have broken the law.”
According to appraisals received by the university, the fair market value of the O’Keeffe, according to the petition, is estimated at $10.5-15 million; the Hassam, between $1-3.5 million; and the Church at $1-3 million.
Works of art on display at the Brauer Museum of Art on the Valparaiso University campus in Valparaiso, Indiana Friday February 10, 2023. (Andy Lavalley for the Post-Tribune)
The petition seeks to modify the trust established by the late Percy H. Sloan, which provided the paintings or the funding for them, to allow for the sale. Under that trust, the paintings could only be sold if the funds were reinvested into the museum’s collection.
The university wants to modify the trust “because such conditions have become impracticable, impossible and wasteful,” according to the petition.
The funds would be used to renovate freshman dorms, “and create therein the ‘Sloan Gallery of American Paintings’ in order to directly display other works of the Sloan collection to students, all of which is intended to increase student enrollment and more consistently honor Sloan’s intent of furthering conservative art and art education so far as is possible and as is consistent with the general plans of Valparaiso University.”
The sale of the artwork to renovate the dorms, the university argues in its petition, would help increase student enrollment.
alavalley@chicagotribune.com
