The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. has deaccessioned eight major works by artists including Georges Seurat, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Anish Kapoor at Sotheby's fall sales. O'Keeffe's "Large Dark Red Leaves on White" (1927) sold for $7.9 million, a Seurat drawing fetched $4.9 million, while a painting by Arthur Dove fell short of expectations and a Kapoor sculpture failed to sell. The plan, devised by director Jonathan Binstock, aims to fund future contemporary art commissions and collection care, but has sparked an 18-month dispute between museum leadership and the Phillips family descendants over the interpretation of founder Duncan Phillips's legacy.
This controversy matters because it highlights the ongoing tension in American museums between institutional survival and donor intent. The Phillips Collection, founded in 1921 as "America's first museum of modern art," had to redefine its "core collection" policy to allow the sales, ultimately broadening protections for works listed in a 1985 catalog. The case underscores how deaccessioning—selling art to fund operations—remains a deeply divisive practice, especially when it involves works from a museum's founding collection, and raises questions about how museums balance financial needs with preserving a founder's vision.