News that the Dia Art Foundation is planning to sell a group of artworks at Sotheby’s this fall to raise money to create an acquisitions fund has been met with opposition, according to a report by Tyler Green in his blog, Modern Art Notes.
Paul Winkler, the former director of the Menil Collection and brother of Dia’s co-founder Helen Winkler, wrote a letter to Dia’s director, Philippe Vergne, criticizing the foundation’s decision to sell a group of works including Cy Twombly’s 1959 “Poems to the Sea,’’ a suite of 24 drawings along with sculptures by John Chamberlain and a painting by Barnett Newman.
“Cy Twombly considered ‘Poems by the Sea’ to be one of the greatest sets of drawings,†Mr. Winkler wrote. “It is a masterwork, not a minor piece to be sold to beef up an acquisition fund. The same can be said of the exceptional Chamberlain work in your care and Newman’s “Genesis - The Break.’’
At the time the sale was announced Mr. Vergne said the reason for the auction was that “Dia cannot be a mausoleum, it needs to grow and develop.’’ But Mr. Winkler countered: “Past directors have expanded Dia’s breadth by adding major works by artists they believed were essential to our times. They did so with new funding, not by depleting the core collection.’’
