Pennsylvania Museum Selling a Hopper to Raise Endowment for Contemporary Art

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Hopper’s “East Wind Over Weehawken.”

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is putting up for sale a painting by Edward Hopper from its collection to start an endowment fund to buy contemporary art. The 1934 painting, “East Wind Over Weehawken,” one of two Hopper paintings the academy’s museum holds in its collection, will be sold at auction at Christie’s in New York in December with a presale estimate of between $22 million and $28 million, the academy said.

The academy, in Philadelphia, bought the Hopper painting in 1952 from the artist’s dealer Frank K. M. Rehn for $2,750, and said it was sticking to its collections policy and standard practice in the museum field by dedicating all proceeds from the sale to the endowment to buy new artworks.

Harry Philbrick, the museum’s director, said the new fund also marked a return to a tradition of the museum collecting contemporary art. “We had a very strong tradition of doing that until the 1950s when we pulled back,” he said. “In recent years, we have been trying to be more active.”

The museum will keep its other Hopper painting, “Apartment Houses,” from 1923, which it bought from the artist directly and was the first oil painting by Hopper to enter the collection of any museum, Mr. Philbrick said. “East Wind Over Weehawken” will be the only artwork the museum sells to fund its new endowment. Mr. Philbrick said that if the work fetches its estimate, it will quintuple the funds generated annually for the purchase of art. About 25 percent of the endowment will be dedicated to filling gaps in the collection of historic art, but around three quarters of new investments will be in contemporary art.

The main focus will be American painting and sculpture, Mr. Philbrick said, but “we will be looking to buy significant works across various mediums.” The museum recently added a Bill Viola video installation to its collection. The sale at Christie’s may attract some attention. According to the Artnet price database, only 22 Hopper paintings have come up for sale at auction in the last 25 years. In May, one Hopper, “Blackwell’s Island,” from 1928, sold at Christie’s for $19 million. That painting has been acquired by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., it was announced on Monday.