Delaware Art Museum sells Wyeth, Homer paintings

The Delaware Art Museum has sold two more paintings, Andrew Wyeth's "Arthur Cleveland" and Winslow Homer's "Milking Time" to retire its construction debt and replenish its cash, museum officials announced late Monday.

"Today, we close one of the most difficult chapters in the story of the Delaware Art Museum," museum CEO Mike Miller said in a statement. "We reached our most important goal – keeping the museum open and thriving."

Museum officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Both paintings were sold privately, and the museum did not disclose their purchase prices or the names of those who bought them.

But the clearing of the debt and putting some cash in the bank has some other benefits: Foundations and other grant makers had been refusing to consider requests from the museum while its finances teetered on insolvent, Miller said in a chat last month.

Now, he said, groups like the Longwood Foundation and others are willing to listen to and grant requests for things like funding for curator seats and other moves that will help the museum stabilize its money, staff and mission.

The 1946 "Arthur Cleveland" is a gloomy portrait of one of Wyeth's farmer neighbors in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. A print is still available for $15 through the museum's online gift shop, www.delart.org.

Previously, Wyeth's son, local realist painter Jamie Wyeth said he might be interested in buying works by his father or grandfather, N.C. Wyeth, that would be sold by the museum. Wyeth couldn't be reached for comment Monday.

The museum has been under fire from national museum groups since its board voted in March of 2014 to sell up to four works to retire its $19.8 million debt and funnel more than $10 million into the museum's endowment. The debt was leftover from a 2005 facilities expansion. None of the four works from the 12,500-piece collection were acquired by the museum through gift or bequest.The 1875 "Milking Time" is considered a landmark painting by Homer, widely regarded as one of the greatest American painters of the 19th century.

Then in June of 2014, the museum sold "Isabella and the Pot of Basil," a pre-Raphaelite masterpiece by William Holman Hunt, for a disappointing $4.25 million at public auction. Later that year, the museum sold Alexander Calder's "Black Crescent" mobile. Museum officials declined to disclose the purchase price, since the work sold privately.

The Wilmington museum's decision to sell masterpieces to repay capital debt provoked sanctions from two professional museum associations. The century-old institution lost its accreditation and ability to receive loaned works from many museums nationwide.

To make matters worse, the first two works didn't bring in enough money to retire the debt.

In a September interview, board chairman Gerret Copeland said the board was forced to take at least $5 million from its already depleted endowment to pay off the loan by the bank's deadline.

Last month, Miller said that staff had presented a list of four works to the board to sell to try to replenish the endowment. The board had given them permission to sell whichever one would bring the greatest money. He did not reveal which works were on that list.

It was unclear from the museum's statement Monday whether the sales of the final two paintings did anything to increase the $25 million endowment or simply repaid the amount borrowed last year.

Betsy Price contributed to this report.

Contact Margie Fishman at 302-324-2882, on Twitter @MargieTrende or mfishman@delawareonline.com.