The Maryland Institute, College of Art's decision to sell a major art collection is forcing Baltimore's cultural community to confront the troubling issue of whether institutions violate the public trust when they sell works left in their care.
That question has surfaced frequently across the country -- including a highly publicized flap over an art sale last month by the New-York Historical Society -- as financial pressure prompts institutions to consider selling art to make ends meet.
"This is a very difficult situation," said Walter Sondheim, a longtime city leader. "On one hand you have the obvious importance of keeping the collection in Baltimore. On the other, the institute is an educational institution that has an asset that is generating no income for it, and it apparently needs the income."
The debate involves a collection amassed by Baltimore native George A. Lucas that includes 18,000 prints, 300 paintings, 140 bronze sculptures, 1,500 books and other works. Lucas left the collection in 1909 to his friend Henry Walters, who in turn gave it to the institute.
Last week, the institute announced plans to increase its $9 million endowment by selling the Lucas collection, which has been on loan to the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery for more than a half-century.
While acknowledging the scholarly and artistic value of the collection, administrators of the institute decided that retaining ownership of the art -- which has been appraised at less than $15 million -- does not allow them to serve the college's educational mission.
The works "are of no significant value to us in our mission, nor can they be," said Robert Shelton, chairman of the board of trustees of the four-year college of art.
Noting that educational institutions and museums have different responsibilities, Mr. Shelton pointed out that "the Maryland Institute is not a museum. Our purpose and our mission is to educate art students."
But the idea of either a college or a museum selling its art upsets many art educators and museum curators. Of particular concern is the sale of objects to shore up endowments or to cover operating costs, said Larry Silver, past president of the College Art Association, a 14,000-member organization of educators and curators.
"The policies are clear from the entire art community that selling for money is simply deplorable. The institutions who do so are betraying their own mission and the good will and benevolence of their original benefactors," said Dr. Silver, an art history professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
Art professionals also argue that the sum of a collection is often more valuable than its parts. Not only can scholars learn from individual works, they say, but the manner in which the collection was built tells a historical and artistic tale.
Still others worry that future benefactors will be discouraged from donating if they think their collections will be dispersed.
"How do you convince people that things have a kind of appropriate home and final resting place in a public institution, when in fact that might not be the best place at all?" asked Tom Freudenheim, assistant provost for the arts and humanities at the Smithsonian Institution and former director of the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Nonetheless, many in the art world concede that the mission of an institution can sometimes be better served by judicious sale of works. "There are many sides to each case, and each case is different. You have to examine the full case," said Sylvia Williams, president of the Association of Art Museum Directors.
But she hastened to make clear the seriousness with which she regards each decision to sell: "This is always a matter of very deep concern, when collections of works of art -- and in this case we're talking about an extremely important collection -- are considered for sale in order to alleviate financial pressures.
"It is a terrible loss for a community, it is a terrible loss for a state, and it can be a loss for a country."
The Association of Art Museum Directors, a professional group for museum administrators, has strict rules to guard against the irresponsible sale of art works. These state that money from art sales "shall not serve to provide operating funds, and the proceeds from disposal must be treated as acquisition funds."
Still, the Maryland Institute's decision to sell is far from unique. And considering the current climate of diminishing arts funding at the state and federal levels, as well as increased competition for corporate and private dollars, many art professionals say such announcements come as no surprise.
"It's in some ways maybe inevitable, given the fiscal problems institutions face," said Mr. Freudenheim. But he added: "Institutions hold these things on behalf of the public, in their public trust. I don't think it's about legal niceties. . . . The word 'trust' comes from public trust in the institution."
Not everyone shares these concerns.
Daniel Grant, author of "The Business of Being an Artist," said that neither universities nor museumgoers are served by the narrow rules of the Association of Art Museum Directors.
"Instead of determining that museums have to give paramount importance to buying new collections, one might say that it's more important to ensure that the collections are taken care of well," he said.
Despite the debate, the sales go on:
* Last month, Sotheby's auctioned 183 old master paintings owned by the New-York Historical Society. The society needed money to help end a financial crisis. Some of the paintings had been on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The sale caused such a furor that the New York attorney general imposed a plan whereby public institutions could pre-empt a sale and buy items at a discount. Three works were pre-empted. The auction brought in about $12.2 million.
* Four years ago, the Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University in Massachusetts sold 11 works by artists including Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Vuillard at auction at Christie's in New York. The works brought $3.65 million, which helped pay operating expenses.
* In 1989, the Johns Hopkins University sold the Peabody Library's signed copy of John James Audubon's "Birds of America" to enhance the library's endowment. The auction brought nearly $2 million.
* From 1979 to 1985, Hopkins sold more than 2,500 coins from the Garrett collection at Evergreen House. Their sale contributed more than $25 million to the endowment of Hopkins' division of arts and sciences.
At times, public outcry has averted similar sales.
In 1991, the Barnes Foundation of Merion, Pa., sought court permission to change its bylaws and to dispose of art works. Dr. Albert Barnes, who amassed the collection, which includes works by Cezanne, Seurat and Matisse, had stipulated that no part of it ever be lent or sold.
The protest was so great that the foundation, citing "adverse publicity," canceled the sale. But the court allowed the foundation to send 84 works on a world tour to raise $7 million for renovations to the foundation's buildings.
Occasionally, institutions beset by financial demands have sold works in ways that meet with approval from all sides of the debate.
In 1990, for example, the state of Maryland, Hopkins and the Peabody Institute developed a program to improve the long-range financial status of Peabody. At the time, the Peabody needed money -- and owned an art collection that included works by Mary Cassatt, Charles Willson Peale and Rembrandt Peale.
The state agreed to put $15 million in escrow for a period ending next year. The Peabody then will receive the money, and the state will receive title to the art. Meanwhile, the collection remains at various Baltimore museums.
Whatever becomes of the Lucas collection, art professionals say they will continue urging institutions to carefully consider decisions to sell art.
"I know we are living in a period in the United States where there isn't much regard for history and there is such emphasis on the moment and on the dollar bill," said Dr. Gabriel P. Weisberg, professor of art history at the University of Minnesota and former head of the museums program at the National Endowment of the Humanities. "But this is a good fight, and we are going to fight it."