Editorials

It’s tax time again. The cover of the New Yorker depicts IRS forms folded into the shapes of missiles, warplanes and tanks, in case anyone has any doubts about where most of their taxes are being wasted. On the inside, another cartoon: Robin Hood sitting in the office of his accountant, who says “You have to declare what you rob from the rich, but you can deduct what you give to the poor.” 

One traditional way for members of the private sector to avoid paying taxes for things they don’t like is to give money instead to institutions which provide benefits for the general public, like art museums. The tax laws encourage this, in varying proportions at various times. Right now the Bush-era tax law changes have made it possible for the very rich, both corporations and individuals, to avoid paying any significant amount of taxes, so their incentive to donate for public purposes is much reduced. Institutions like museums which have depended on tax-deductible donations are therefore hurting, and are looking to preserve the programs they value by any means necessary. 

However … since the funds for most museums come either directly from taxes or from donations which have been made with the benefit of tax law exemptions, there’s a strong public interest in what they do with their money. That’s why the people of California should be grateful to new citizen Vladimir Raykin of San Jose, who alerted us with a letter to an imminent sale of a famous Russian painting by the former University Art Museum, now called the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM-PFA for short). It has been hanging on loan in Berkeley’s unique and well-respected Judah Magnes Museum for many years. 

Daily Planet art critic Peter Selz, the founding director of the university museum, placed the work, Solomon’s Wall (1884-85), depicting worshipers at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, by Vasilii Vereshchagin, in artistic context in our last issue. Now a Bloomberg article forwarded to us by Raykin gives more of the back story. It seems that Phoebe Hearst (mother of William Randolph Hearst) donated the painting to the museum in 1920, but current museum director Kevin Plonsey was quoted as saying “We never used it for our own exhibition programs,” at least during his tenure. When the Magnes wanted to renew the loan, BAM-PFA had it appraised for insurance purposes, and, he said, “…we were staggered.” Christie’s New York auction house is hoping it might bring as much as $5 million on their auction block on April 18. 

There’s been no particular public outcry so far about the sale of this painting. Director Plonsey told the Bloomberg reporter that his museum is now focused on modern and contemporary Western art, East Asian art and film and video. “It was a classic case of a great work which had no context within our museum collection,” he said.  

This is standard operating procedure for many museums today, choosing a limited arena in which to try to excel, but it might not be the best strategy for a museum which, despite its change of name, is still primarily a university art museum. One valuable function of a university art museum should be to give art history students, and students in general, the opportunity for first-hand looks at all kinds of great art, not just at what is stylish or appeals to the institution’s management at a given point in time. The small college I attended my freshman year had a couple of genuine Corots in its modest collection which were not particularly stylish then or now, but I spent hours looking at them up close and personal, as one can seldom do with paintings in a crowded metropolitan museum.  

One can’t help wondering what other masterpieces which don’t fit the dominant paradigm might be hiding in collections where the current management doesn’t appreciate them. At least this particular painting was loaned out to another museum where it was both appreciated and displayed, but many works of art are languishing in storage. The Oakland Art Museum’s glorious recent exhibition of the work of Arthur and Lucia Matthews included pieces from the museum’s own collection which hadn’t been shown to the public since their last Matthews show more than 20 years ago. 

BAM-PFA has announced plans for a fancy new building downtown and is now trying to come up with the money to pay for it. There’s no doubt that $5 million, if it comes to that, would be put to good use. Consey did tell Bloomberg that the proceeds of selling the Vereshchagin would be put in an endowment for acquisition of future works of Western and Asian art, but that would also free up funds from other sources which could be used for construction costs if desired. He said that “in a perfect world [the painting] will be purchased by a collector and given to an institution in Russia.”  

Mr. Raykin told us in his letter that he’s concerned that “the great painting, our California treasure, will be purchased by a rich Russian oligarch and will leave California and the U.S.A. soon.” He said that “for me, as a Russian-Jewish immigrant and Jewish community member, the Jerusalem Western Wall is a very important religious symbol,” and that he believes “we should recognize that Vereshchagin’s masterpiece … belongs to the people of California and plays an important role for us Americans…. I think the decision [by] UC Berkeley to auction it off at Christie's on April 18 is very unfortunate for us Bay Area and California residents and all Americans.” 

Since it’s by no means a perfect world, and since in Russia as in the United States the rich are getting richer while the public sector is getting poorer, his point is worth pondering. While it might seem nice to send a Russian painting back to a Russian museum, if it goes into private hands it’s possible that we might never see it exhibited again in either country, and that would be a shame. Is there someone else who should be making a broad-based policy decision regarding the fate of this valued possession of the state of California and all its citizens, instead of leaving the judgment to the narrow focus of the current BAM-PFA managers and the vagaries of the marketplace? It’s possible.