Indiana court allows Valparaiso University to sell O'Keeffe painting

[September 05, 2024]  By Liya Cui

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Indiana judge has ruled that Valparaiso University can sell a Georgia O'Keeffe and two other paintings, in part because the O'Keeffe and another of the paintings are not "conservative," as required by the donor who made the school's purchases possible.

"This has been a difficult decision throughout, but we believe that this way forward represents the best possible future for the Sloan trust, our students, and our university as a whole," Valparaiso said in a statement on Wednesday, a day after the court ruling.

The private Lutheran university in Indiana last February announced its intention to sell the most valuable paintings in its Brauer Museum of Art collection, estimated to be worth $20 million in total, to fund a dormitory renovation.

The New York Times reported that under the terms of a 1953 gift from Percy Sloan, donated in honor of his father, artist Junius R. Sloan, Valparaiso had to abide by conditions of Percy Sloan's will, including that income associated with the gift should be spent for maintaining the collection or acquiring paintings.

This week's court ruling allows for the sale of art acquired with the gift or donated by Sloan to raise funds for a purpose not spelled out in the will, important because the school has faced criticism from students and faculty for its plans to sell the paintings.

When a museum sells its artwork to raise funds, the money is typically used to acquire, store or preserve other works, according to guidelines established by the Association of Art Museum Directors.

Sloan's gift included money and hundreds of paintings, with the stipulation that any artwork the school bought with the gifted funds had to be "of the general character known as conservative and of any period of American Art."

In the 1960s, the school purchased two landscapes: "Rust Red Hills" painted by Georgia O'Keeffe in 1930, and "The Silver Veil and the Golden Gate" created by Childe Hassam in 1914.

Valparaiso successfully argued that the paintings are not conservative because O'Keeffe is a modernist and Hassam is an impressionist.

The third painting, 1849's "Mountain Landscape" by Frederic E. Church, was donated by Sloan and not included in the conservative argument.

Gretchen Buggeln, an art history and humanities professor at Valparaiso, said that Sloan, who collected impressionist paintings, likely meant by "conservative" representational, rather than abstract.

"'Rust Red Hills' looks like rust red hills. There's no question that that's a representational landscape," she said.

The court did not specify how it interpreted the word "conservative."

The university has been struggling financially due to declining enrollment, according to its legal petition. The judge also agreed with its argument that it cannot adequately protect the paintings, which it said were the most valuable in its museum.

Valparaiso placed the paintings in a storage facility last September and temporarily closed the museum in June.

The school says their outdated freshmen dorms have made it difficult to recruit new students. The renovation includes plans to build a gallery to display some of the Sloan paintings, which the court ruled as aligned with the trust's intention to promote art education.

(Reporting by Liya Cui; editing by Donna Bryson and Sandra Maler)

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