Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Did the Art Institute Pay Too High a Price to Edlis by Agreeing to 50-Year Display?

April 27, 2015 by Marion Maneker

Jasper Johns' 'Target' Art Institute of Chicago, Edlis/Neeson Collection Jasper Johns, "Target," 1961

There’s an endless tension between art collectors and museums that has come out again with the announcement of the Art Institute of Chicago’s gift from Stefan Edlis and his wife Gael Neeson. Part of the terms that won Edlis over was the promise to keep the works on view for 50 years. Michael Savage, who writes a blog called the Grumpy Art Historian, neatly illustrates one side of the argument. Those who decry the moving of the Barnes Collection to central Philadelphia might be considered the opposition:

It’s a bad acquisition not because of the pictures, but because they paid too high a price, agreeing to display the collection together for fifty years. That is not really a gift. It’s an expensive acquisition that hands over a public space and subverts it to the whim of vain plutocrats.

Donors Stefan T. Edlis and Gael Neeson are buying themselves a memorial, over-riding judgments of more expert curators and over-riding the changing views of posterity to insist that their taste is imposed for half a century, that their pictures are shown whilst other, perhaps better pictures are consigned to storage. If the importance of the collection were beyond doubt then the condition would be unnecessary. The collection’s focus on the most currently fashionable artists makes it especially vulnerable to changing taste, and I suspect that future curators and visitors will bitterly regret this acquisition.

Grumpy Art Historian: Bad Acquisition in Chicago.

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Loeb Sues Sotheby’s, Doesn’t Want to Choke on Poison PillLoeb Sues Sotheby’s, Doesn’t Want to Choke on Poison Pill
  • Sotheby's Islamic Evening Sale = £7.07mSotheby's Islamic Evening Sale = £7.07m
  • Don’t Know Much About Warhol? Don’t Know Much About Warhol?
  • Sotheby’s Hong Kong Asian Mod/Cont Upside SurprisesSotheby’s Hong Kong Asian Mod/Cont Upside Surprises
  • Design BaselDesign Basel
  • Rare Apple-1 Computer Available from Christie’s Private SaleRare Apple-1 Computer Available from Christie’s Private Sale

Filed Under: General

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • How to Chant Like an Auctioneer
  • Aboudia, Zemba Luzamba, Dickens Otieno Anchor Contemporary African Art Sale at Artcurial in Marrakesh
  • Selection Bias In Art Is What Creates Value
  • Tracey Emin Neon Lights Up Sotheby's 'Contemporary Showcase' Pop-Up
  • Sotheby's Pulls in a $9m David Hockney for November
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor