Laguna Museum to Further Divest

The Laguna Art Museum--which stunned the arts community a month ago with its decision to auction off its collection of photographs by Paul Outerbridge--has announced plans to sell 240 more works, about half of which will be auctioned in Los Angeles on Sunday.

But these sales are not likely to be as controversial. According to Viveca Paulin, a researcher at Butterfield & Butterfield Fine Art Auctioneers, the 113 works on the block there this weekend are mostly unsigned studies--not finished pieces--and are expected to fetch no more than a total of $15,000.

They are works on paper by nine American artists active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The museum has not yet consigned the rest of the works, mostly European in origin or of secondary quality, according to chief curator Bolton Colburn.

These and the Outerbridge sales are part of a long-range plan, established at least four years ago, “to [eliminate] works in our collection that don’t fit” the museum’s mission of showcasing historic and contemporary work by California artists, Colburn said. Museum officials called it a standard process of housecleaning.

All proceeds from the sales will go back into the museum’s acquisition fund, Colburn said.

None of the decisions to sell works has any relation to the museum’s plan to merge with the Newport Harbor Art Museum, he added. Trustees from both museums voted Tuesday to merge. The vote must be ratified by a majority of the Laguna museum’s members.