News analysis: increasing disposable income
The financially motivated sale of works from collections is on the rise
When the £11m redevelopment of the Watts Gallery in Surrey is unveiled later this month, it will represent a significant milestone in changing attitudes towards selling items from museum collections.
The gallery’s finances were rescued when it raised £1.5m by selling two pieces from its collection in 2008. Neither painting was by GF Watts, the 19th-century artist to whom the gallery is devoted.
The case of the Watts was one of the factors that the Museums Association (MA) to amend its code of ethics to allow financially motivated disposal in exceptional circumstances.
A one-day conference held at the National Gallery in London last month, organised by law firm Farrer & Co, attempted to gauge where the sector is in terms of museums and galleries selling items from their collections since the MA’s code of ethics was changed in late 2007.
As Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar noted at the conference, disposal is no longer a taboo subject and is a routine part of what museums do. But financially motivated disposal, where objects are sold rather than transferred to another museum for free, is still controversial.
Despite some initial fears, the change to the MA’s code of ethics has not led to lots of museums selling items from their collections. But financially motivated disposal is on the rise, and some predict a flood of proposals in the current economic climate, as local authorities start to cash in on museum assets.
One of the museums that asked the MA for advice over a possible sale of works was the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro. It was a financially motivated disposal as the museum wanted to raise funds to create an endowment. Two works were sold in June 2010 for £2.1m.
Royal Cornwall Museum director Hilary Bracegirdle says the museum benefited greatly from the rigorous approach it took, which met requirements for financially motivated disposal in the MA’s amended code of ethics.
It has received more offers of donations than before the sale as it is now regarded as a sustainable organisation that can take care of its collection.
Fears that public confidence in museums would be damaged by a museum selling an item from its collection was one of the main reasons against financially motivated sales. The Royal Cornwall Museum has proved that this does not have to be the case if the process is done rigorously and the public are consulted.
But other worries remain. One is how museums can be sure that the objects they are selling won’t become important and valuable in years to come. There is always a tendency to get rid of the unfashionable to acquire the fashionable.
And will selling items damage the integrity of a collection as a whole, even if individually they might not appear that important? Many at the conference argued that, over time, the risk of making mistakes in the sale of works is outweighed by the benefits of buying new items.
Part of this relates to curatorial expertise and staff having the confidence to make decisions about what can be sold. But where does this leave museums, beyond the realisation that it’s a complex issue and that proposed sales need to be judged on a case-by-case basis against the MA’s code of ethics?
The conference showed there are still grey areas that museums need help on. The MA’s disposal toolkit provides some answers, but there is not a great deal on financially motivated sales.
The issue is particularly difficult for local-authority museums where there are no statutory rules about selling items from collections. Staff in local-authority museums can find themselves caught in the middle of rules relating to Accreditation, the MA’s code of ethics and the aims of councillors.
There have been calls for clarification on the meaning of the code of ethics wording that says a sale should “significantly improve the long-term public benefit derived from the remaining collection”. Does this mean sales can support funding for capital bids?
Is trading up allowed, where a museum sells an inferior work so that it can buy a better one? And who should have responsibility for deciding whether a work should be sold? Should it be the visiting public, non-visiting public, curators, council officers or elected representatives?
Further research in this area is being conducted by the MA. It will appoint a research fellow in the summer to review a range of issues related to the sale of museum collections. The year-long fellowship, which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council, is expected to start in August.
www.museumsassociation.org/collections/disposal
There will be a session on the ethics of disposal at the MA’s annual conference in October. Click here to find out more
The gallery’s finances were rescued when it raised £1.5m by selling two pieces from its collection in 2008. Neither painting was by GF Watts, the 19th-century artist to whom the gallery is devoted.
The case of the Watts was one of the factors that the Museums Association (MA) to amend its code of ethics to allow financially motivated disposal in exceptional circumstances.
A one-day conference held at the National Gallery in London last month, organised by law firm Farrer & Co, attempted to gauge where the sector is in terms of museums and galleries selling items from their collections since the MA’s code of ethics was changed in late 2007.
As Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar noted at the conference, disposal is no longer a taboo subject and is a routine part of what museums do. But financially motivated disposal, where objects are sold rather than transferred to another museum for free, is still controversial.
Despite some initial fears, the change to the MA’s code of ethics has not led to lots of museums selling items from their collections. But financially motivated disposal is on the rise, and some predict a flood of proposals in the current economic climate, as local authorities start to cash in on museum assets.
One of the museums that asked the MA for advice over a possible sale of works was the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro. It was a financially motivated disposal as the museum wanted to raise funds to create an endowment. Two works were sold in June 2010 for £2.1m.
Royal Cornwall Museum director Hilary Bracegirdle says the museum benefited greatly from the rigorous approach it took, which met requirements for financially motivated disposal in the MA’s amended code of ethics.
It has received more offers of donations than before the sale as it is now regarded as a sustainable organisation that can take care of its collection.
Fears that public confidence in museums would be damaged by a museum selling an item from its collection was one of the main reasons against financially motivated sales. The Royal Cornwall Museum has proved that this does not have to be the case if the process is done rigorously and the public are consulted.
But other worries remain. One is how museums can be sure that the objects they are selling won’t become important and valuable in years to come. There is always a tendency to get rid of the unfashionable to acquire the fashionable.
And will selling items damage the integrity of a collection as a whole, even if individually they might not appear that important? Many at the conference argued that, over time, the risk of making mistakes in the sale of works is outweighed by the benefits of buying new items.
Part of this relates to curatorial expertise and staff having the confidence to make decisions about what can be sold. But where does this leave museums, beyond the realisation that it’s a complex issue and that proposed sales need to be judged on a case-by-case basis against the MA’s code of ethics?
The conference showed there are still grey areas that museums need help on. The MA’s disposal toolkit provides some answers, but there is not a great deal on financially motivated sales.
The issue is particularly difficult for local-authority museums where there are no statutory rules about selling items from collections. Staff in local-authority museums can find themselves caught in the middle of rules relating to Accreditation, the MA’s code of ethics and the aims of councillors.
There have been calls for clarification on the meaning of the code of ethics wording that says a sale should “significantly improve the long-term public benefit derived from the remaining collection”. Does this mean sales can support funding for capital bids?
Is trading up allowed, where a museum sells an inferior work so that it can buy a better one? And who should have responsibility for deciding whether a work should be sold? Should it be the visiting public, non-visiting public, curators, council officers or elected representatives?
Further research in this area is being conducted by the MA. It will appoint a research fellow in the summer to review a range of issues related to the sale of museum collections. The year-long fellowship, which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council, is expected to start in August.
www.museumsassociation.org/collections/disposal
There will be a session on the ethics of disposal at the MA’s annual conference in October. Click here to find out more
Selling collections
- Bolton Council is looking to sell 36 paintings, including a Picasso, to raise money to develop a new storage facility.
- The Royal Scottish Academy, in Edinburgh, is selling an LS Lowry, The Hawker’s Cart, on 2 June. It will enable the academy to set up an endowment fund to support the work of its collections department and purchase key works by Scottish artists.
- A court will rule in December whether Wedgwood Pension Plan Trustee Ltd is permitted to sell items from the Wedgwood Museum to plug a £125m pension deficit.
- Aberdeenshire council is looking to save £90,000 in 2011-12 and £30,000 in 2012-13 by closing small museums, including Stonehaven’s Tolbooth Museum, and transferring or disposing of some of its collections.
- Gloucester City Council recently invited Christie’s auction house to value its collections, and has begun a review of its objects.