Silent Knight

Mike Boehm and art critic Christopher Knight have written an extensive "report" on what they call a "silent deaccessioning." Uploaded on last night's Los Angeles Times website, Boehm and Knight write that:

The Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach has quietly sold 18 of its 20 California Impressionist paintings to an undisclosed private collector, sparking criticism from two local museum directors who say the secrecy violated the public interest by preventing them from bidding to keep the works in collections open to the public.

Adding that the sale:

...doesn’t wash with Bolton Colburn, director of the Laguna Art Museum, and Jean Stern, director of the Irvine Museum. Both say that if they’d known the California Impressionists were for sale, they would have sought donors to bankroll bids.

According to Boehm and Knight, The L.A. Times learned of the sale after a reader’s tip on their arts blog, Culture Monster.

Silent Knight