Benton murals return to the Whitney

Here's a story from the NY Times that nicely illustrates the pitfalls when museums follow trends too assiduously:

The Whitney Museum of American Art is billing its display of "The Arts of Life in America," five murals painted by Thomas Hart Benton, as "a landmark homecoming." For the past 51 years, the murals have been part of the permanent collection of the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut, which has lent them to the Whitney, their original owner, for nine months. . .

By the 50's Benton's work was considered embarrassingly outmoded. Regionalism was equated with America-first isolationism, and with the ascendancy of Abstract Expressionism, if Benton were mentioned at all, it was because he had been Jackson Pollock's teacher. . .

The Whitney now looked on the murals as unwanted surplus, their status as faded as Benton's reputation. Sanford Low, the director of the New Britain Museum, was informed in 1953 that the paintings might be for sale.

Low ended up buying them for nuppence: $500, plus $3000 in relocation expenses (the Whitney had paid Benton $4600 for the murals in 1932). Estimated value today? The Times mentions one conservative estimate of a minimum of $10M.

Posted by David on April 20, 2004 10:52 PM