Auction set for Randolph College's Tamayo piece

Six months after an injunction prevented the sale of four Randolph College paintings, the school’s “Troubadour,” by Rufino Tamayo, will lead a two-day Christie’s auction for Latin American artwork.

“Our advisers have told us that this is the most advantageous time to take the Tamayo to market,” school spokeswoman Brenda Edson said Friday. “You don’t often see paintings like the Tamayo available for sale, and there has been a lot of sustained interest in the painting since fall.”

College President John Klein announced the decision in an e-mail sent to students, faculty and staff Friday morning.

Opponents say the art sale would violate widely accepted ethical guidelines, which dictate that art sale proceeds should be used only to strengthen the collection.

The paintings are American masterpieces that should stay local, they say.

The works originally were slated for auction last November, but an injunction filed by students and former employees and donors of the Maier Museum barred the sales.

The 1945 Latin American painting is expected to sell for an estimated $2 million to $3 million in the May 28 auction.

In total, the four paintings were expected to raise at least $32 million to add to the school’s $153 million endowment.

Edson said the school still needs to sell the remaining three paintings — George Bellows’ “Men of the Docks,” Edward Hicks’ “Peaceable Kingdom,” and Ernest Hennings’ “Through the Arroyo” — and will do so when most financially advantageous.

Margaret Williams, an art history student at the school, said she was shocked to see the announcement in her inbox Friday morning, the same day senior art history majors presented their final papers for the year.

“I think it’s a bad idea. I don’t think it’s good for the school,” she said. “I don’t know what their mind set is that they think this is the right solution.”

Opponents were able to raise only half of the required $1 million bond finalizing the injunction, which as a result was lifted in February.

A lawsuit filed in combination with the injunction also has since been pulled, and opponents have said they hope to address the matter in a separate lawsuit.

Coined the charitable trust case, it challenges the former Randolph-Macon Woman’s College’s use of donations and assets to benefit the education of a now coeducational student body.

Lynchburg Circuit Court Judge Leyburn Mosby Jr. dismissed the case last year, but last week the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments for appeal. On June 6, the court is expected to decide whether the case may proceed to trial.

Ellen Agnew, former associate director of the museum who resigned amidst the controversy, said Friday she was against the college’s decision to sell the art before that decision is released.

“This seems to me a flagrant poke in the eye of the Virginia Supreme Court, whose ruling on the charitable trust case is due the week after the Christie’s auction,” said Agnew, who also was a plaintiff in the art case that got pulled.

She called the Tamayo work “an iconic piece” that is the cornerstone of the museum’s limited Latin American collection.

A Christie’s news release states that the painting “has the potential to break the current world auction record for Tamayo, which was set at Christie’s in 1993 with the 1955 painting, America (Mural).”

Troubadour was donated to the college in 1949 by collector Stephen C. Clark. Agnew said the donation was arranged by Robert McIntyre, a New York art dealer who took a special interest in building R-MWC’s collection of American art.

“It’s really symbolic of what we all believe is important, which is the continuation of this collection intact,” Agnew said.

Opponents also have pointed to Randolph’s $153 million endowment, which is larger than most other private liberal arts colleges of comparable size.

Edson said the school needs to sell the four paintings to lower its spending rate from the endowment, which in recent years has been much higher than acceptable ranges.

Although the school has adopted coeducation and made many budget cuts in the last year, she said, the art sale will raise the endowment total and, in turn, lower the spending rate.

“It’s not the total endowment, but the spending rate that we are concerned with,” Edson said. “This particular painting, it’s not the most valuable painting, but it will help our endowment spending rate.”

She said the future of the college and its art collection is tied to the sale of the four paintings.

Agnew said the sale of the Troubadour would only be a “drop in the bucket.”

“In my mind, there is no financial justification for the college taking this course of action at this time,” she said.