COMMENTARY : A Telling Auction for Museum : Art: ‘Mount Hood’ sale could help and harm Southwest Museum.

This morning, the gavel at Christie’s New York auction house will fall on Albert Bierstadt’s monumental 1864 landscape, “Mount Hood in Oregon.” The 6-by-10 foot canvas, which the German immigrant exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial celebration in 1876, establishes a yin and yang of interlocking natural forces: The high, snow-clad peak looms above the deep water of a bowl-like spot along the Columbia River.

Prices being what they are, the auction house aggressively estimates “Mount Hood in Oregon” will fetch between $1.5 million and $2 million. If it does, the transaction could be very good news indeed for its consignor, Los Angeles’ long-troubled Southwest Museum.

The Southwest Museum has had its share of woes in recent years. A $200,000 deficit in 1987 was accompanied by drastic cost-cutting measures, an abortive attempt at merger with the County Museum of Natural History and the resignation of director Patrick Houlihan. Last year, a confidence-shaking FBI investigation discovered that more than 100 fine American Indian textiles, baskets, pots and other works, valued in excess of $2 million, were missing and unaccounted for. Today, the annual operating budget of $1.2 million far exceeds income from the museum’s endowment, which stands at slightly more than $5.5 million.

On the flip side, the sale could also add to the museum’s troubles. The reason for equivocation is that, according to the Southwest Museum’s new director, Jerome Selmer, the board of trustees has not determined what to do with the income. Selmer says the board found it prudent to hold off on a decision until after the final sale price of the picture is known; the determination might be made as early as the next board meeting, scheduled for June 6.

Yet, the sale of an important painting held by a museum for more than 50 years is clearly a momentous step. If waiting until after that step has been taken to figure out what to do with the money seems peculiar, the oddity only increases when you consider that there really is no decision that needs to be made. The proceeds must be used solely for the purpose of upgrading the collections of the Southwest Museum. Any other use would constitute a misuse.

In 1987, ethical guidelines for the formulation of de-accessioning policy were issued by the Assn. of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), an advisory body that oversees professional museum practices. Those guidelines are unambiguous in their declaration: “De-accessioning shall not serve to provide operating funds, and the proceeds from disposal must be treated as acquisition funds.”

De-accessioning hasn’t been as hot a topic as it is today since at least the early 1970s, when it seemed like former Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas Hoving might be willing to liquidate whole chunks of the collection of that august edifice in pursuit of funds for all manner of grandiose schemes. The reason for renewed concern is obvious: An overheated art market beckons.

For museums, the enhancement of acquisition options has become a pressing issue. As prices have jumped, they have seen the buying power of their acquisition funds--in most cases, not exactly princely to begin with--shrink at an accelerating rate. Simultaneously, a foolishly revised tax code has radically diminished the number of gifts from private collectors.

De-accessioning in order to raise money is among the options being exercised. (Four other museums have consigned work to today’s sale at Christie’s.) Just as the art that museums want to acquire is increasingly more expensive, so the art they already hold in public trust is more valuable. For a nonprofit institution that must perpetually compete for funds of any kind, the sale of minor, damaged or otherwise “inappropriate” art accumulated over the years can translate into a nice bit of cash.

European museums typically forbid the de-accessioning of art from their collections, as does the National Gallery of Art. The general feeling is that decisions of quality, authenticity, appropriateness and such ought to be made before the work enters the museum collection, not after. If “mistakes” in acquisition are made, they simply reveal the history of changing taste and the history of the collecting institution. The museum’s obligation is to use that material in as publicly beneficial a way as possible, not to dispose of it and risk making yet another error.

By contrast, persuasive arguments can be made for the legitimacy of a museum selling off art, even important art, and the decision to do so is hardly ever cavalier. Selmer says that the institution’s board of trustees had for many years contemplated the sale of the Bierstadt, a 1926 gift to the museum from the late Georgina Jones that has languished in storage for nearly a decade. It simply did not fit within the museum’s purview.

The decision is certainly reasonable. The Southwest Museum is widely known for the quality and scope of its great collection of Native American artifacts. In this context, Bierstadt’s panoramic view of the Oregon mountains is an anomaly. To attempt to make it fit by trying to add a significant representation of American painting and sculpture of the 19th Century would clearly be unwise, given the spiraling cost of art, competition for a dwindling number of significant works, the existence of a similar collection across town at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and ongoing fiscal difficulties elsewhere in the museum.

Disappointingly, the Southwest Museum has no existing written policy pertaining to the disposal of works from its collection. A retired city personnel executive with no previous museum experience, Selmer is nonetheless familiar with AAMD guidelines. He argues, however, that it is not correct to consider the sale a “de-accession” because the Bierstadt is not part of the collection of the Southwest Museum. Explaining that no records show the Bierstadt was ever formally accepted by the board into the museum’s collection in the half-century since it was donated, the director says, “You can’t de -accession something that hasn’t been accessioned first.”

I suppose that’s true; but semantic quibbles only trivialize a momentous subject. For it is equally true that “Mount Hood in Oregon” is a work of art held in the care of a museum. A painting isn’t a piece of office furniture, a junk bond or a vertical slab of real estate, any of which might be regarded as an asset a museum could liquidate to pay the light bill, hire personnel, undertake programs or do any of a thousand other tasks that budget problems might aggravate. Even the ancients knew that Saturn insured his own doom the moment he decided to devour his children.

Currently, the Southwest Museum has no acquisition endowment at all. For a long time it has had to rely almost exclusively on gifts in order to fill gaps in its prominent collection, which was principally assembled prior to the 1930s. While it is unfortunate that, as of today, Bierstadt’s painting might leave Los Angeles forever, and may well join the ranks of those a voracious art market has sucked out of the public sphere and into the private realm, we can at least look forward to the happy prospect of significant compensation: an enhanced collection of Native American artifacts at the Southwest Museum, courtesy of proceeds from the sale.