Randolph College's art sale injunction lifted

By: Christa Desrets / Lynchburg News & Advance | Lynchburg News and Advance
Published: February 15, 2008

A temporary injunction that prevented the auction of four Randolph College paintings was lifted on Friday, but the school says it has not decided when to sell the artwork.
"We have to look at when is the most financially advantageous for the college," school spokeswoman Brenda Edson said.
The sale's opponents had until Friday to post the second half of a $1 million bond finalizing the injunction, which would have then stayed in place until May.
They could not raise that amount in time, said their Richmond-based attorney, Anthony Troy.
On Wednesday, the group filed a request with the Virginia Supreme Court to reduce the bond amount to the $500,000 posted in December. The court denied that request Thursday.
"Since we were unable to make the bond, we asked that the $500,000 be returned," Troy said. "The court's order is silent on that issue."
If returned, the money would be used to fund other art litigation expenses, said Anne Yastremski, executive director of Preserve Educational Choice, a nonprofit organization funding the cases.
The college opposes the request to return the $500,000, Edson said.
"That bond is there to protect the college from losses," she said. "We believe that the amount that was already posted should be kept in the event that we do win the lawsuit and we are able to prove damages, to help us recover some of the losses we have incurred."
The college originally planned to sell the four paintings from the Maier Museum of Art - George Bellows' "Men of the Docks," Edward Hicks' A "Peaceable Kingdom," Ernest Hennings' "Through the Arroyo," and Rufino Tamayo's "Troubador" - at auctions held through Christie's auction house in November.
According to the college's response to the plaintiffs' request to reduce the bond, the school would have made nearly $14,000 daily from interest alone if the paintings would have sold at their expected combined total of $50 million.
"The bond amount, even if it were posted in full, would not cover those damages," Edson said. "We need to get these issues resolved. Every day that goes by, the college suffers greater damage."
According to litigation the school filed Wednesday, "Although the College has no immediate plans to sell the Four Paintings until after the circuit court trial, the College cannot represent that it would not sell if the temporary injunction were dissolved and a willing buyer made an offer acceptable to the College's Board of Trustees."
Edson said part of the decision of when to sell will come from looking at how changes in the economy may affect the art market.
Yastremski wrote in an e-mail Friday that she still hopes trustees would keep the artwork "as the educational and cultural asset for the College and Lynchburg community that the donors intended.
"A sale of these paintings before the art trial would appear to be very risky given that the Judge could decide (as we hope) that the College does not have the right to sell these works of art at all," she wrote.
A trial on the artwork is set for the end of May in Lynchburg Circuit Court, Troy said.
Hearings before the Virginia Supreme Court related to the college's decision to become coeducational previously were scheduled for the end of this month, but may be delayed until mid-April, Troy said.