Commentary: Museum should give, not sell, art
Maybe it's the record-breaking summer temperatures, exacerbated by global warming, but some art museum folks in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts seem to be suffering from heatstroke. Plainly they've lost their minds.
In late July, the Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield's local newspaper, reported that the Berkshire Museum, the town's long-struggling museum of history, science and art, finished off a two-year self-examination by deciding to sell off 40 of the most notable paintings, sculptures and drawings from a collection not known to be overstuffed with outstanding art.
The reason for the sale: to raise as much as $60 million to fund future museum operations. If this is the museum's solution to its fiscal woes, I'd say it's time to fold its tent and close.
This is the second, much larger de-accession of the museum's art in the last decade. (At the time of
