Ohio art museum selling off surplus pieces

Associated Press

TOLEDO

The Toledo Museum of Art has been holding a garage sale of sorts.

The museum earlier this year began selling some of its surplus artwork that stays in storage and no longer fits its focus on pieces that best represent an artist or style.

So far, the museum has sold about 200 pieces that have brought in just under $1 million. The money will go into a fund devoted to buying new artwork.

Museum director Brian Kennedy said it doesn’t make sense to hold onto to pieces that aren’t likely to see the light of day.

“If we haven’t shown them for decades and aren’t likely to show them, then they don’t have a practical function in our display,” he said. “They could have a practical function even if they’re not displayed in consultation by scholars in education, but generally speaking the model of this museum is that we want active use.”

All of the works were sold on the open market through auctions. Those sold this year were mostly pieces of export China, Old Masters prints, American prints, and 19th century European. Another 50 works will be auctioned in January.

The museum can be choosy because it has so many works, Kennedy told The Blade.

“When you’ve gotten to a stage where you have tens of thousands of works of art, well you can be much more particular because storage is an issue, conservation is an issue,” Kennedy said.

The museum, which is privately and on solid financial footing, is not selling the items because it needs the money, he said.

Selling off surplus art is actually a common practice for museums.

The Toledo museum has held similar sales in 2002, 2006 and 2008.

The process of deciding which works to shed begins with the museum’s six curators who will list works that are duplicates, no longer relevant or lower-quality pieces by an artist who is already well-represented. Suggestions are taken to a committee that determines what to sell or loan to another institution.

Kennedy said sometimes the museum displays marginal works to gauge reaction.

“What we’re doing is testing it,” he said. “And we have left works in the galleries for two or three months to allow all of our staff and visitors and art experts scrutinize it for that period.”