Two Major Blows to the Delaware Art Museum: Loss at Auction & Official Sanction from AAMD

Ruth Osborne

It turns out the Delaware Art Museum’s Board of Trustees may have to dig even deeper into their collections to make up for their $30 million budget deficit.

Yesterday at Christie’s in London, the first work of art given up in exchange for cold hard cash went for half the lower estimated sale price: $4.8 mil instead of $8.5-$13.6 mil. Other items thought to be in line for the chopping block include an Alexander Calder mobile and a painting by Winslow Homer. To add to this financial catastrophe was today’s sanction of the Delaware Art Museum by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). President Timothy Rubb has not failed to make his disapproval extremely clear in various press statements over the past few months. The sanction from AAMD, posted earlier today, states:

“With this sale, the museum is treating works from its collection as disposable assets, rather than irreplaceable cultural heritage that it holds in trust for people now and in the future…we ask our members to suspend any loans of works of art to, and any collaborations on exhibitions with, the Delaware Art Museum, until notified by us that the sanctions have been suspended or removed. While each of our members needs to consider this request individually and make its own decision, it is AAMD’s strong belief that the actions of the Delaware Art Museum are contrary to the long term interest of each and every art museum.”