Sale of paintings aims to save library

Trustees are pained to have to sell the Rockwell paintings.
LITHOPOLIS, Ohio (AP) -- Four original Norman Rockwell paintings will be auctioned in an attempt to save a library that traces its roots to the Funk & amp; Wagnalls Dictionary.
"It upsets me to even think about losing these things. There is a lot of sentimental and historic value," Carl Spencer, executive director of the foundation that runs the Wagnalls Memorial Library, said as he looked at his favorite, "The Story of Christmas."
The foundation's board of trustees authorized the auction, with two perhaps as early as December, to stabilize a portfolio that has fallen to about $3 million from $10 million in 1998. Residents have questioned what happened to the money, and Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro's office is investigating.
The foundation hopes the paintings will net $1.6 million to $1.8 million and is negotiating with a New York auction house to handle the sale, Spencer said.
The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., doesn't estimate the value of his pieces. His "Rosie the Riveter" was sold by Sotheby's in 2002 for $4.95 million, the highest amount paid for a Rockwell. "The Watchmaker" sold in 1996 for $937,500, said museum spokeswoman Ellen Swan Mazzer.
The Tudor Gothic architecture of the Wagnalls library dominates the landscape of this village of 600 people about 15 miles southeast of Columbus.
A new state subsidy allows the library to stay open 38 hours a week. The foundation, which gave out 140 $1,000 scholarships to local students last year, will hand out only two this year.
History
Mabel Wagnalls Jones built the library in 1925 and dedicated it to her parents, Adams and Anna Wagnalls, who grew up in Lithopolis. Her father was co-publisher of the dictionary.
The couple received the paintings as a gift from Rockwell and displayed them in their home in New York. The paintings and most of the estate of their daughter, who died in 1946, went to the foundation.
In the same room as the Rockwell paintings is a collection of Chinese art that likely will go on the auction block too. The foundation's trustees also plan to restructure two loans and rent space in the attached Wagnalls Community Center.
Spencer, hired in June at about $40,000 annually, said the dictionary heiress would understand the need to sell the paintings.
"She was a very financially astute lady. Our focus is on perpetuity. If this supports that happening, I think she would be very supportive of that," he said.
The thought of losing the paintings makes former library director Jo Riegel miserable.
"This is a piece of Wagnalls and Bloom Township history that will be gone forever," she said.