Delaware Art Museum, circa 1950s Winslow Homers Milking Time

(vintage postcard, collection of D. LGuerra ) under threat of auction

The Siqueiros Mural at the magnificent (and solvent) Santa Barbara Museum of
Art boldly shows J. P. Morgan and the fate of poor Mexicans under his
plundering. Wilmington natives now suffer a different kind of plunder of the
human spirit. Delaware Art Museum decision makers stand ready to sacrifice
great art to save a building where are great many cocktail parties were held.



SAVING MEMORY AND ART
By
Donata Lewandowski Guerra
I speak of the Delaware Art Museum with the eye of a child who examined its iconic
paintings -- ravishing pre-Raphaelites, Howard Pyle illustrations, and contemporary art I could
not yet fathom. Today my vintage postcard shows the building in the mid-1960s when I was a
teenager enrolled in a museum art course. Two symmetrical red-bricked wings on Kentmere
Parkway sit sturdy with a central pedimented portico and three arched entrances. Once I
wandered the quiet halls steeped in delicious reverie, alone in the precious surround of
masterpieces.
Within five years, a Swarthmore College art history course propelled me back to the
intimacy of connecting with a canvas, a small Tiepolo at the grander Philadelphia Museum of
Art. As a volunteer docent I later shared art historical insights at the University of Miami Lowe
Museum of Art. I felt I had been born in a museum. In time I led my own children through the
galleries in Delaware, our country, and abroad.
Now the disheartening news of the Delaware Art Museums financial woes, and a Board
of Trustees vote to sell works of art to appease a threatening loan payment demand, is made
worse by rumored sell-off of a significant Winslow Homer creation, Milking Time.
Homers 1875 scene of rural life speaks directly to the American character through the
craft and vision of an artist who was its witness. A child who does not know what a nineteenth
century person -- or one from another historical era-- looked like, is culturally deprived. Online
images cannot substitute for direct viewing of works executed by a resident of that time and
place whose work exudes excellence.
Now auction houses threaten loss of these valuables to bidders worldwide who will treat
them as trophies for private eyes. Eugene Lang, Chairman Emeritus of Swarthmore College
rightly said that bankers take our equity and turn it into debt. Thus cultural and artistic equity
is treated as a face-saving commodity.

What can be done in the face of plundering of cultural patrimony as though it comprises
assets to be divided and sold? Oscar Wilde spoke of those who know the price of everything
and the value of nothing. This happened in Wilmington before, in the 1960s, with destruction
of historic neighborhoods for an Interstate while protecting suburban fiefdoms. I remember that,
too.
The museum must return to its original mission as a place where fine historic art is on
exhibit for young people. It should not function as a private enclave where patrons entertain
friends. The museum Facebook page, perhaps in efforts to attract donations, has featured too
many photos of the well-dressed at leisure, but not enough of the artwork. Dependence on
corporations who have lost their paternalistic drive to serve community is not an option, nor is
reliance on one family or social set for short-term help. Sycophancy, social-climbing and
business opportunism at its worst (three human vices) operate to the detriment of the larger
public. Those taking these decisions appear to have forgotten the treasury of the art and its place
in young lives to have such command over this enterprise. Was it ever about keeping that work
of art on a wall for a fourteen year old to contemplate?
Concrete solutions are up to those who care about the art. The bank demands a solution.
Here is one: use the minimum amount of endowment to vacate the present Kentmere venue and
escape with the art treasury intact. Just as the British did during the Blitz, when they relocated
their art to private estates outside London, store the works in the large houses of those who will
donate them. Find an empty building to serve as the initial site for the core collection of a new
museum. Choose wisely and economically. Let members of the community volunteer their
precious hours to crate, transport and deposit the art. Celebrate with a picnic, not a cocktail
party.
It is telling that the Santa Barbara Museum of Art displays on its outside porch a donated
masterpiece by Mexican muralist Siqueiros removed from a Los Angeles mansion. The subject
is a greedy J.P. Morgan surrounded by suffering indigenous Mexican people. Wilmingtonians
are not Mexicans, but at this moment they share in the oppression created by a swelling bank
loan. Our preserved artwork, and the experience of it, is priceless. Our humanity demands that
we not jettison it for material survival -- not even in the face of faceless institutions.