The sale of artworks by the Whitney Museum has caused polarizing opinions.

This is not the first time a Museum wants to sell artworks to get newer ones. Though there are precedents, and some might understand, it is hard to set the limits.

The facts.

According to the Whitney Museum, the proceeds from the sale of their deaccessioned artworks will be used to grow the museum's collection, specifically in the area of contemporary art. The museum's endowment currently stands at $411 million. The decision to sell the works was made after careful consideration and examination by museum stakeholders, who determined that the pieces were redundant within the collection.

The upcoming Modern Evening sale at Sotheby's will feature eight artworks from the Whitney Museum of American Art, including Cobb's Barns, South Truro (1930-33) by Edward Hopper. This oil painting is expected to sell for between $8 million and $12 million. In addition to Hopper's piece, the Whitney is also selling other works by artists such as Maurice Prendergast and John Marin, which have lower estimated values.

According to the Whitney Museum, the proceeds from the sale of their deaccessioned artworks will be used to grow the museum's collection, specifically in the area of contemporary art. The museum's endowment currently stands at $411 million. The decision to sell the works was made after careful consideration and examination by museum stakeholders, who determined that the pieces were redundant within the collection.

Jane Panetta, curator and director of the collection at the Whitney presented the deaccessioning of artworks as aligned with the Whitney Museum's founding principles, which include showcasing art by contemporary American artists. According to Panetta, updating the museum's collection is a way of recognizing that the United States has undergone significant changes in recent decades, not to mention over the course of a century.

The Whitney Museum has previously faced the question of what it means to be an American artist. In the 1970s and 80s, during the tenure of museum director Thomas N. Armstrong III, artists who lacked US citizenship or permanent residency were not recognized as true Americans. As a result, the museum even contemplated removing works by artists who lacked proper documentation, such as Yayoi Kusama's Air Mail Stickers from 1962, which was nearly deaccessioned. However, the rule was eventually abolished in 1990.

One of the most vocal opponents of deaccessioning artworks has consistently been the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), a prominent industry group. Although the AAMD does not hold legal authority, it has the power to sanction museums that deaccession works for reasons other than enhancing their collections. Such sanctions from the AAMD can prohibit offending museums from loaning out their artworks, sharing resources, or collaborating with other member institutions of the association.

On the other hand, those who support the deaccessioning of artworks, such as Christopher Bedford, the director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, are often viewed as being on the radical end of the spectrum. In Bedford's previous role as director of the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), he faced criticism in 2020 for attempting to sell several works, including pieces by Andy Warhol and Brice Marden, for as much as $65 million. The funds were intended to support "collection care" and to acquire contemporary works by artists from underrepresented groups, such as women or people of color, freeing up other resources for salary increases. However, the proposal was abandoned after facing intense opposition from members of the BMA's board, staff, and art critics. In a scathing critique, Los Angeles Times critic Christopher Knight dubbed the museum the "leading poster child for art collection carelessness."

Neal Benezra, who previously served as director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) before Christopher Bedford, was also known for his support of deaccessioning. In 2019, Benezra oversaw the sale of a beloved Rothko painting from SFMOMA's collection for $50 million.

It is not the first time that a Museum has decided to sell some works to buy new ones.

This is not the first time this happened : Alfred H. Barr Jr., the inaugural director of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), had established a policy requiring the museum to sell artworks in its collection that were more than half a century old to other institution. The proceeds from these sales were then used to acquire works by contemporary artists, in keeping with MoMA's mission to stay current and "modern."

In 2020, Sotheby's held an auction that was set to include works from both the Baltimore Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. While the Baltimore Museum ultimately withdrew its works just 2 hours before the sale, which included pieces by white male artists like Andy Warhol and Brice Marden, the Brooklyn Museum did not. Among the works that the Brooklyn Museum sold were pieces by renowned artists such as Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, and Claude Monet, netting the museum approximately $20 million.

The sales were made feasible after the AAMD eased its regulations in April 2020 concerning the use of "restricted funds" by some institutions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Although the rules of the organization were not technically modified, it implemented a temporary "moratorium on punitive actions" and granted some flexibility to use the "proceeds from deaccessioned art to pay for expenses linked to the direct care of collections."

The AAMD officially established that policy last year, making it a permanent rule that museums can utilize funds from deaccessioned art for the "direct care" of objects within the collection, but with strict criteria outlining what qualifies as "direct care." It remains unacceptable to sell artwork to cover operating expenses or salaries. Among the members of the task force responsible for crafting the policy were Christopher Bedford and Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art.

Last September, Glenn Lowry and MoMA were at the forefront of the most recent deaccessioning controversy. This was when Sotheby's disclosed its plans to auction off 80 artworks worth around $70 million that had been on loan to MoMA since 1990.

The AAMD’s decision to allow museums to use deaccessioned art funds for "direct care" of objects in their collection was not universally accepted. In 2021, Erik Neil, director of the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, expressed his dissatisfaction with the policy, stating to the New York Times that "if you want to flip paintings, there are many other types of institutions where you can do that, and they are called commercial galleries."

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The question.

According to Panetta, the reason why deaccessioning works is considered taboo is because it may appear to undermine the museum's mission of being a "permanent steward of the objects that it collects," which makes people anxious.

The Whitney Museum's deaccessioning proposal seems to align with AAMD regulations. As per Panetta's statement, only artworks from areas where the museum has substantial collections and similar examples by the same artists, such as Prendergast, Marin, Hartley, and Hopper, will be deaccessioned. The Baltimore Museum of Art made a similar argument regarding its Warhol collection.

According to Panetta, the reason why deaccessioning works is considered taboo is because it may appear to undermine the museum's mission of being a "permanent steward of the objects that it collects," which makes people anxious.

Although the Whitney Museum's deaccession plan doesn't involve a highly valuable artwork like the Warhol that the BMA tried to sell in 2020, Edward Hopper's works are closely associated with the museum. Even though the painting to be auctioned wasn't part of the recent Hopper exhibition at the museum, it did hang in the Oval Office during the Obama administration, which may increase interest in the upcoming auction in May.

The act of selling works from a museum’s collection is a divisive issue. An ex-museum director in the US, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the Financial Times : “Provided that the museum uses all sale proceeds for the purchase and direct care of newly acquired artworks, this is in line with the Association of Art Museum Directors guidelines. The only question is the extent to which mining historical collections to purchase contemporary art will become a trend, and in so doing sacrifice works that in the fullness of time will be missed.”