by Jon Lackman | 14 January 2007 | Americas, Museums
In The New York Times, Michael Kimmelman recaps the recent controversy over Eakins’ Gross Clinic (and visits some other Eakins paintings). The painting was being lured away from Thomas Jefferson University not by the National Gallery alone, but by the National Gallery in collaboration with Alice L. Walton. Did the subsequent outcry result from a concern for Philadelphian heritage, from the relocation of major American paintings to Arkansas, or from the involvement of Walmart profits? The article remarks that America’s esteemed museums (including Philadelphia’s) were themselves assembled by unabashed capitalists. It also notes that it took the threat of relocation to stimulate Philadelphians’ interest in the painting, which had previously been rarely visited.
