Lee Rosenbaum: "November is rapidly becoming Deaccession Month."
The latest: MoMA is selling a Rufino Tamayo painting with "a distinguished exhibition history": it's "been in the museum's collection since 1953...and has been included in exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art...and Tate Gallery."
Hey, isn't a work like that held in the public trust, to be accessible to present and future generations?
I guess not so much.
Lee explicitly connects this Tamayo to another one that was deaccessioned, by Randolph College a few years ago. That sale, or course, was the Worst Thing That Ever Happened. (Lee is still having "traumatic flashbacks.")
This sale of a Tamayo, on the other hand?
Come on, don't be so touchy.
