Another college art museum cashes out

In 1920, students at what was then Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Va., raised $2,500 to buy George Bellows's "Men of the Docks," a stark 1912 painting of men waiting by the water's edge. It was the first purchase for what later became the college's Maier Museum of Art.

Yesterday, the board of Randolph College voted to sell the prized Bellows canvas and three other paintings from its art collection this fall at Christie's in New York. The auction house estimates that the Bellows alone, which goes on the block on Nov. 29, could bring in $25 million to $35 million -- at least 10,000 times what the students paid in 1920. . .

Essentially, the strapped Randolph board is seeking to capitalize on its biggest asset: a $100 million art collection that includes 3,500 paintings, prints, drawings and photographs mostly by American artists like Bellows and Edward Hopper. The plan has drawn heated objections from alumnae, teachers and the Lynchburg community.

Posted by David on October 1, 2007 10:05 PM