Petition to Save Three Paintings
Sign The Petition — Art Is A Core Resource
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Hi, Tumblr acquaintances! I am posting in the hopes that this petition will find some signers. It is very important to me, to universities and academics, and to art lovers/ethicists.
The administration of my alma mater, Valparaiso University, without consulting the faculty, has decided to sell 3 paintings, 2 of which were purchased through a restrictive trust -- unethical.
This would continue the dampening of the school spirit that began with the administration's high-handed financial cuts without heed of faculty, student, and alumni protest.
These are the 3 paintings at stake:
Georgia O'Keeffe's Rust Red Hills
Frederic Church's Mountain Landscape
Childe Hassam's The Silver Veil and the Golden Gate
If the administration gets away with this, it signals the definitive beginning of Valpo as a get-in-get-out school and a culmination of the decades-long trend of administrations' everywhere domineering over faculty. Most significantly, it signals that morale and trust pale next to finance and dorm renovations (yes, that's where the millions go).
This key move in the pursuit of a 5-year plan, which focuses on the supposedly practical, will detract from the access of Indiana residents to cultural assets, and deny that art is a core value and resource.
Ironically, Paul Brandt, the university president who signed an agreement with Percy Sloane to keep his gifts and cultivate the spirit of learning in which they were given, now likely will have the dorm named in honor of him renovated in a betrayal of his trust if we do not sign this petition.
Please sign! Anyone -- and I mean anyone -- can.
Here is the link:
On a more personal note, I visited these paintings, among others, 5-10 times by myself during my years at university, and in class several times. I lived in Brandt Hall 2016-18, and it had just been renovated then!
One of the Chicago Tribune Articles:
Despite mounting criticism from the campus community, Valparaiso University is holding firm on its decision to sell three cornerstone pieces
UWMilwaukee Letter:
