Maier Museum art controversy boils

Karol Lawson arrived at the Maier Museum on Monday morning for a day that began like most others in her position as director of the museum.

Until shortly before 5 p.m., when about 10 college employees entered the museum and said they were taking four of the museum’s most highly regarded pieces of art.

The Randolph College board of trustees had voted to auction the works in November.

Tuesday, Lawson became the third Randolph College employee to publicly resign her position this year over the school’s handling of its prized art collection.

In April, Laura Katzman, director of the school’s museum studies program, resigned. In August, Maier Associate Director Ellen Agnew followed.

On Tuesday, Lawson was still coping with her experience from the previous day.

“It feels a little unreal for me,” she said. “We have, all of us, feared this day.”

In the wake of Randolph College’s decision to sell four paintings from the Maier Museum of Art, opponents say that other options were not pursued, that some of the museum’s most important pieces were squandered and that the museum may have greatly diminished its standing as a highly regarded, ethical institution.

Others say that college officials explored numerous options before settling on selling only four of the collection’s 3,500 pieces. They say the four pieces were carefully chosen to cause the least damage to the coherence of the collection.

“I don’t think there’s anything that we could (do to) make this easier for some. And we understand that,” college spokeswoman Brenda Edson said. “We have to do what’s right for the college.”

Lawson remained at the Maier while the artwork was removed, she said Tuesday.

Randolph College President John Klein asked if she would help remove paintings from the walls, but she declined, she said. She chose to stay in her office instead, not “having the heart” to say goodbye to the artwork she had spent eight years caring for.

Phone and Internet lines were disabled, she said, but she wasn’t alone in the office - she was accompanied by one of several college officials for the roughly two hours they were in the building.

“This is not how museum professionals would transport a painting of any value,” she said. “The safest thing you can do is to hide in plain sight, to travel with as little fanfare as possible.”

Edson said professional art handlers packed and transported the paintings.

“It was done in the most professional manner possible,” she said. “A lot of thought went around as to how to best handle this … you have to take every precaution necessary.”

She said the college understands Lawson’s strong feelings for the art collection and that the board had a similar passion for the college as a whole.

“They’re committed to ensuring its long-term future, and that’s a future that will include an exemplary American art collection,” Edson said.

Alice Ball, a 1961 alumna of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College who was president of the board of trustees from 2000 to 2004, said she was glad to hear the resolution to a matter that had been in “limbo” for months.

“I think it’s a smart and prudent move,” she said Tuesday. “… I think it’s a great idea to sell some of the things that are very valuable that deserve and can have a much wider audience while keeping the core of the collection.”

“I’m heartened by the care with which the deliberations must have taken place. It can’t have been easy.”

Nancy F. Walker, a 1998 alumna, said she feels like the college did not exhaust all alternative options.

A member of both the Maier Advisory Board and the Art Alumnae Working Group that was formed last December to guide the trustees on the matter, she said she participated in discussions and heard many ideas on how to use the collection.

“It seemed to me that over the period of the year, the board members who were on this working group didn’t seem to be interested in pursuing (alternative ideas),” Walker said. “They felt these ideas were not going to garner enough money in this quick period of time … they said they needed it by December.”

That’s when the school will have its next review from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Randolph’s accrediting organization.

Last year, SACS placed the college on warning after a review showed the school spending its endowment at an unsustainable rate. If the school hasn’t improved its financial footing by the next review, it could be put on probation, which is one step away from losing accreditation.

“We never heard a timetable, we never knew anything. And when I saw that e-mail from (board president) Lucy Hooper in my inbox last night, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor,” Walker said Tuesday, referring to an e-mail announcing the decision. “What do they hold sacred?”

Anne Wilkes Tucker, a 1967 alumna who also was on the art alumnae working group, walked away from the experience with a different impression.

“I’m an art historian because of that collection, so it’s very precious to me,” she said. “So like everyone else, I’m angry. But I know the college has worked very hard the last six months to try to avoid selling the art.”

“We failed. All the other things we tried didn’t work.”

Tucker, now the curator of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, was impressed with the board’s thoughtfulness on which pieces, if removed, would least affect the coherence of the collection.

“They could have gone for more money for the endowment, and they were as restrained as they felt was fiscally prudent,” she said. “They were trying to balance a genuine respect for the collection with the financial situation.”

Katzman, who, after resigning from Randolph College gained employment as an assistant professor of art history at James Madison University, said the removal of four important paintings has a “major impact” on the museum’s coherence.

George Bellows’ “Men of the Docks,” Edward Hicks’ “A Peaceable Kingdom,” Ernest Hennings’ “Through the Arroyo” and Rufino Tamayo’s “Troubador” represented a wide variety of symbolic paintings at the Maier, she said, and their removal will damage the museum’s integrity both in the eyes of donors and other institutions.

“Museums are going to be very cautious to continue to lend to the Maier in the future because the (the removal and auction) of paintings will be perceived as unethical because the proceeds will not be used to build the collection,” she said. “Museums are very cautious about who they lend to.”

For Tucker and others in the art world, she said, it was “absolutely critical” to return to the collection some of the money earned from the sale of the art.

That’s why she was happy to hear that part of the sale’s proceeds will be invested to provide an endowed position for the future director of the museum.

“The rules in the art world are that all the money should go back - so they have diverged from that practice,” Tucker said. “But at least they have endowed the position … We still have the collection, and we have to take care of it.”