Berkshire Museum

A compromise is a deal that neither side is happy with. Other than a few hard fought concessions the Berkshire Museum will now gut the museum and its collection in pursuit of its vulgarian, populist New Vision. It's tarnished leadership, including director, Van Shields and board president, Elizabeth McGraw, will have a tough job earning back the trust and support of a community which they so adroitly alienated.

In 1993 I was intrigued by ersatz weapons fabricated from funky materials by Jimmie Durham in the Whitney Biennial. To explore creative freedom the artist left America in 1987 never to return. While acquiring a global reputation it is only now that the work is again being seen and debated in the States. A long overdue retrospective "Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World" organized by the Hammer Museum traveled to the Walker Arts Center and is finishing its run at the Whitney Museum. It states a case for Durham as one of the formost American artists of his generation.

Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960) founded the Shelburne Museum which has 150,000 objects and 39 buildings on 45 acres. Her father Henry Osborne Havemeyer was known as The Sugar King. With his wife Louisne they created a vast collection donating 2,000 objects, including French Impressionist masterpieces, to the Met. Electra married polo champion James Watson Webb II of the Vanderbilt family. Well before the controversies of the Berkshire Museum, in 1996, the Shelburne Museum sold $30 million of its art to pay expenses. During the winter just five buildings are open. We viewed two special exhibitions in the Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education which opened in 2013. It was a lively and intriguing experience.

The 2018 season of Barrington Stage Company which will feature three world premieres, including a major new musical from Tony Awards winners William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin, a new play from Off Broadway Alliance Award winner Lloyd Suh, and the first major production from playwright, Rachel Lynett. The season starts with Typhpid Mary by Mark St. Germain in the theatre named for him.

A decision on an appeal by Attorney General of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, to halt the sale of 40 key works of art at Sothebys on behalf of the Berkshire Museum will be decided by the end of January. Van Shields, now on medical leave as director of the museum, and board president, Elizabeth "Buzz" McGraw, announced their $60 million plans for a New Vision in July. What started as a local story has morphed into national and global coverage. The outcome of this unethical attempt at deaccessioning by a pariah museum may have a game changing impact on the mandate of all American museums' commitment to preserve and conserve collections for future generations.

During our visit to the Cape Cod Museum of Art we viewed several special exhibitions: Salvatore Del Deo: A Storied History, extended through October 28, Discovering Cape Cod’s Museum Treasures, through November 26, and Judith Shahn Selections: A Tribute to Thomas Linxweiler through November 12. We met with Dr. Edith Tonelli who has been director for the past four years. She provided an overview of the museum and plans moving forward. We also learned why the museum and adjacent Cape Playhouse prove to have been uniquely moving experiences.

“This is a classic case of confronting a well-organized, well-financed, misguided inside group, hoping to lead them to their better angels,” said Leslie Ferrin, founder of Save the Art. “That’s why we’re crowd-sourcing Save the Art’s legal action fund. We want to invite people to step up at whatever level they can, and say, “we support finding a better solution.”

The artists Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol became rich and famous for giving the public what it wanted. It is this shared populism which is explored in an evocative exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Not surprisingly the exhibition has been mobbed with visitors.

It was thrilling, poignant and terribly sad last night when many artists, friends and community packed the Berkshire Museum for a vernissage of the sprawling, eclectic, and dazzling retrospective Morgan Bulkeley: Nature Culture Clash. It may be the last such project focused on a Berkshire based artist. As a part of its New Vision the museum is dumping 40 works of art and reconfiguring. Van Shields and the board refuse to discuss the fate of the remaining collection of 40,000 objects and the role if any of the fine arts in its plans.

Relying primarily on published sources Felix Salmon in the New Yorker has reported on the deaccessioning and New Vision of the Berkshire Museum. As Solomon states “The story of the Berkshire Museum is more than one about a second-tier local institution selling off some art. It’s a story about how fragile museum-industry norms are, how unaccountable a museum director can be, and how much destruction can be wrought during a single secret trustee meeting. (The museum’s new P.R. representative, Carol Bosco Baumann, declined repeated requests to make anyone from the museum available for an interview.)” This is consistent with the museum's bunker mentality of playing hard ball with the media.

To launch A New Vision for the Berkshire Museum it plans to sell 40 key works for some $60 miillion. That's a pot of gold but comes at a terrible cost to the heritage, legacy and cultural branding of the Berkshires. Van Shiields and the museum board insist that there is no other option. That disrespect raises questions regarding stewardship of the 40,000 works in the collection including 2,395 fine art pieces.

Based on an extensive Berkshire Eagle background check of Van Shields, and a failed attempt to create a radical new museum in South Carolina, it appears that he arrived in Pittsfield, a month after being fired, with an agenda. Funding plans that failed there entail selling 40 treasures of the Berkshire Museum. Through intensive study of non profit reports filed with the charity desk of the Attorney General, Thomas White, with knowledge of these matters, has sent us bullet points. They shed light on the "dire straits" forcing the museum to decimate its legacy to rebuild for the future.

Barring intervention by the Attorney General, at best a long shot, plans to sell 40 works of art with two paintings by Norman Rockwell worth as much as the remaining 38 lots, the fall auctions by Sotheby’s in New York appears to be a done deal .For the second time protestors will picket in front of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield from 10 am to 2 pmon Saturday, September 9. This past week Sotheby’s announced a presale estimate of “thirty pieces of silver.”

In May the world's foremost architect, Frank Gehry, signed on to design The Extreme Model Railroad and Contemporary Architecture Museum in North Adams. It is one of 11 projects being developed by visionary museum director Thomas Krens. There is a daunting sticker price of some $300 miliion for construction anticipated to start as early as June, 2018.

As a matter of public record we have examined the Federal tax information Form 990 disclosures of the Berkshire Museum from 2011 to 2015. They do not appear to create a profile of a cultural institution in dire straits. The museum is going forward with last ditch plans to sell 40 works of art. It is possible that there has been a dramatic downturn in the past two years? A Berkshire Eagle editorial asked “Why deny access to the museum's profit/loss statements for the past two years?" Based on reports for the prior five years we have questions for the museum, its director, Van Shields, and the board of trustees.

The renowned former Whitney Museum director, David A. Ross, in an exclusive statement posted to Berkshire Fine Arts strongly opposes plans initiated by the Berkshire Museum. “This is a sad affair. Perhaps the board, if unwilling to raise funds in the way all museums have to, should resign (along with its feckless director). My feeling is it should merge administratively with another educational non-profit in the region, and then begin the process of stabilization. It would be preferable to see the museum close for a few years of re-organization, than to forever destroy the core of its irreplaceable art collection.”

From 9 AM to noon there was an ordely and peaceful demonstration in front of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield. Pickets came and went with between 40 and 80 individuals linuing the sidewalk at any given time. Most passing cars honked their support. There was a media presence. While museum director, Van Shields, remained hunkered down in the bunker, board president Elizabeth "Buzz" Hayes McGraw delivered her boilplate message to a TV crew from Albany.

The artists and their supporters in the Berkshires will take to the streets on Saturday, August 12, from 9 AM to noon. There will be picket lines in front ot the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield. They will provide a visible presence of those protesting the pending sale of 40 choice works and plans to gut and "reboot" the historic museum and collections.

When Laurie Norton Moffett, director of the Norman Rockwell Museum, in a Berkshire Eagle op-ed piece asked the Berkshire Museum to "pause" in its plan to sell 40 works the story broke as national news. In daily coverage since then the pro and con has rocked back and forth. I seemed like game over when Joe Thompson, director of MASS MoCA, endorsed the sale and radical plans urging readers to "get real." Then lawyers waded in questioning that the works may or may not be "unrestricted." The controversy went into extra innings when the Rockwell family, in an Eagle letter, stated that the artist never intended for his works to be sold as a last ditch bailout for the poorly managed and curatorially aenemic museum.

When ethical concerns and second guessing of its "reboot" plans surfaced the Berkshire Museum has spent money it doesn't have for expensive PR and marketing. Heavy hitters have been hired to deflect tough questions from the media and flack the museum's strategy to sell 40 works of art and change its mandate.

In compiling a list of 40 works to deaccession the Berkshire Museum opted to sell no works given by living artists or donors. When Norman Rockwell gave two works to the museum the letter, which is referred to in media coverage, states his wish to share them with the people of the Berkshires. In selling the works is the museum in legal violation of that trust? GIven the sensitivity of what is at stake we demand that the museum make public the artist's letter.

Initially the Berkshire Museum disclosed plans to sell two paintings by Norman Rockwell but declined to reveal the other works. Under intensive media scrutiny and concerns from the community the museum has posted responses to frequently asked questions on the website and has released the full list of deaccessioned works. The lot has a pre auction estmate of $50 million toward a goal to "reboot" with $20 milion in renovation and $40 million for endowment. The remaining $10 millions will be raised apart from the sale of works of art.

Works by Stephen Hannock are in global museum collections. His Oxbow painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be included in a survey of Hudson River artist Thomas Cole. Hannock's mate Sting will also be involved in the project. When he created paintings for his friend's hometown of Newscastle the studies were shown at the Berkshire Museum. He gave one of the studies to the museum to honor philanthropist Nancy Fitzgerald. The fact of that work and the entire fine arts collection of the museum is unknown. We talked at length with the Berkshire based global artist about the impact of the museum's strategy to sell its fine arts collection with a radical makeover as an interactive educational museum for history and science.

When the Berkshire Museum announced plans to focus on science and history there was initial euphoria. To reach a goal of $60 millon, $20 for renoivation, and $40 million for endowment it will sell 40 works of art including two paintings by Norman Rockwell which the artist gave to the museum and his Berkshire neighbors. In so doing it violates deaccession restrictions for art museums. In a shuffle Van Shields, the director of BM, has stated that he does not run an art musuem and is not bound by ethical guidelines. That may change as coverage evolves from local to national news.

Here is a clip and save rundown of the 2017 season of Barrington Stage Company. It begins on May 18 with Kinstler by Jeffrey Sweet, directed by Meagen Fay. Performances: Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30pm; Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at 3:00pm. Opening night May 21, 2017. The programm ends on October 22 with Gaslight.