Thomas Dreiling of Brooklyn writes with an interesting inquiry(see below). I might add that at our Symposium coming up this Sept. 18-20 we will have two sessions addressing some of the issues he raises. Jane Spillman & Tino Oldkow of CMoG will be talking about Museum Gifts. Then, we’ll also have a panel discussion with David Goldstein, John Clayton & Price Prazar who will be discussing related issues having to do with image. I hope Thomas Dreiling’s e-mail will touch off some interesting and thoughtful discussion. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

HI
I was just curious if any club member have any plans to donate their collections to any museums? My 401K permitting, I hope one day to place my collection in a museum. I have two that I really like and haven’t made up my mind which I would approach. Last year I took a class on antique glass from NYU and as part of the class the instructor took us to The Metropolitan Museum, they have a room devoted to Tiffany but very little else, they have two pieces of English cameo and two pieces of Galle and several pieces of Quezal and Durand but only ONE piece of Carder Steuben. Not a lot of glass when you look at the case after case of pottery and porcelain. If Carder Steuben is to be better represented I think some of us collectors will have to step up to the plate and try to make museums understand that glass should be part of their collecting areas just as much as pottery is. What do you think???
Thomas

Ruth Bloom of Bethesda, MD response to John Clayton’s response about Museum’s accepting
“unimportant” contributions and what to do about it.
that was an interesting response. I have a valuable glass collection that I am
thinking of disposing, and don’t know what to do with it

Response from John Clayton of Los Angeles.

Please let Mr. Dreiling know the following:
When I set up my living will, I contacted 5 museums, from mid-size to large, about taking my rare collection of Arts & Crafts silver and pewter by renowned designer Archibald Knox (circa 1900; he met Carder by the way). I also offered furniture from England of the same period, with rare pieces. All responses came back the same way: We have no room left to display items from the early 20th century unless they are cutting edge modernist from that period. Museums keep donations in the basement and occasionally loan them out for shows, but it would be naive to think they would dedicated already scarce display case for something the art world seems commercial and, worst of all, “unimportant.”
A better thought for the Club would be to set up a traveling RV that would go from city to city with a display of Carder Steuben. The RV could be stocked with donated/loaned glass and be accessible at a modest price. It would be an outreach program, “below the radar.” We would need to hire a PR consultant to book venues in which to show the RV show, but it is something we could do for less than $150,000 (RV and PR included) by 2010.
Thanks,

First John Clayton asks those who share this e-mail list where and whether they know libraries, universities and museums that would consider taking Carder Steuben Glass. If you do know, please share. Then he says:

For the Club membership, there is precedence for selling/donating the best
of the best:
For the sake of full-disclosure and of completeness in reporting, I want to share
the one exception to the ‘accept and display permanently’ rule that I know to be
a true story. My Rochester friend Roz (a certified appraiser and top mover and shaker
in the field) and her husband spent 30 years collecting German
Expressionist art (in-depth focus on prints), a much-beloved area among modern
day museum curators. Their collection was what is currently called “important” in
the art world, with many examples from the top artists at the top of their craft
(e.g., the best of the best). Expressionism is favored by the modernist curatorial
community (as opposed to Victorian Art, even though it sells at similar price
points as Expressionism at Christies and Sotheby’s).
Her retired lawyer husband, a great writer and speaker, spent more than a year
cataloging all of the 75+ major pieces, researching provenances, photographing
the art and providing the kind of detail that museums really value. He then
created a “New York Art Museum-quality” Portfolio which he presented to a list
of several dozen museums which might have had an interest. The research to
determine those museums was a multi-month effort.
After many months of some expressed interested but no firm commitments, Roz
and John were contacted by Grinnell College in Iowa. They negotiated with them
and were happy with the result: Grinnell College opened a new wing of their art
gallery, part of which housed this personal collection. For details, see:
Online Image Collection
German Expressionist Prints, 1904-1928
(The Goldman Collection)
The following catalogue lists the German Expressionist prints exhibited in “Walking a Tightrope.” Click on the artist’s name for a gallery of thumbnails. Click on the titles to view the individual print. To access the college’s art collection, please visit:
cat.lib.grin.edu:82/screens/opacmenu.html .
NET TAKE-AWAYS/ RHETORICAL QUESTIONS FROM THIS CASE STUDY:
Is your collection the ‘best of the best’ (i.e., is it deep and showing the top pieces from that discipline, e.g., vases)? Are you well connected in the museum world? Can you enlist the help of (or pay to retain) someone who is? What institutions have curators that are interested in acquiring Steuben glass? Do you have a portfolio with professional photography, up to date provenance and valuations, and annotations on where the piece has been documented in a reference book, especially a scholarly tome? Do you have 15-30 months to dedicate to documenting and marketing your collection? If you add up all this time and effort, and the tax deduction, is it more or less than you would get for selling the glass through eBay or an auction house.