In Detroit bankruptcy, what will happen to DIA?

[Scottathew]

The city needs stop selling assets off to get by and instead fix the issue.

The city is incompetent at managing things, so privatizing will make a lot of sense in many situations.

Beyond mismanagement, terrible union contracts are bankrupting the city.

[rjk]

Does anyone know what would be considered the DIA's most prestigious piece of artwork? If another museum could pick one piece from the DIA's collection what would it be? Just curious.

[Coaccession]

Does anyone know what would be considered the DIA's most prestigious piece of artwork? If another museum could pick one piece from the DIA's collection what would it be? Just curious.

Does anyone know who would be considered Detroit's most prestigious murder victim? If enhanced public health and safety could save one life from among Detroit's residents and visitors, whose life should it be? Just curious about why the focus here keeps coming back to keeping artworks in town instead of saving lives of police and firefighters and paramedics... and artists and teachers and and doctors and store clerks and students and...

Some folks do see enhanced public health and safety as incompatible with keeping artworks in town -- I don't -- and come down on the side of the artworks instead of the public, but let's spare a thought for the public on this thread, and the services that matter most to them. Others see any added city funding as wasted rather than enhancing public health and safety -- they might be right -- but is that all there is to say on the subject?

[Gistok]

Does anyone know what would be considered the DIA's most prestigious piece of artwork? If another museum could pick one piece from the DIA's collection what would it be? Just curious.

As something that can be moved... it would be Pieter Brueghel the Elder's Wedding Dance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Wedding_Dance.JPG

Only about 45 confirmed Brueghel's are known to exist worldwide, with 1/3 of them tied up in Vienna's Art Museum. Most of them are in European museums, with probably fewer than a 1/2 dozen elsewhere. Not only is it valuable because it's rare, but Brueghel painted 2 major scene types... landscapes... and peasant genre scenes of common folk in everyday life. This is of the 2nd type... and among those it's one of the very best, with over 100 people in the scene. He painted several peasant wedding scenes, and this is his finest. It's pained not on canvas, but on wood.

Another very valuable artwork is the Diego Rivera Murals... "Detroit Industry". Many art critics say that Rivera, the greatest Latin American painter of the 20th century, created his finest work here in Detroit, and at Rockefeller Center in NYC. But of course the Rockefeller's hated the communist connection that Rivera painted into their mural, and within a year had it destroyed for a much tamer [[and lamer) mural by another artist. So the surviving Detroit mural wins in that department.

Of the American paintings... Frederick Church [[late 19th century "Hudson River School landscape painting")... his work "Cotopaxi" is my personal favorite, and arguably this mammoth painting is one of the DIA's crown jewels.

http://www.dia.org/object-info/baeac490-f496-4a17-b917-dd0216d11492.aspx

Church, and his Hudson School cohort Albert Bierstadt painted huge canvasses of the American west. These massive canvasses traveled around the country and to Europe to show the magnificent beauty of the American West. However Cotopaxi is a painting of a volcano in Ecuador [[tallest active volcano in the world).... and the colors are outstanding. Both Church and Bierstadt paintings have seen enormous gains in both popularity and value over the years. I believe that Cotopaxi was a steal at $700,000 back in the 70s.

On a different note... DIA Founders Society Chairman Richard Manoogian owns George Caleb Bingham's "The Jolly Flatboatmen".... the best of a series that he painted about life on the Mississippi in the early 19th century. Many art critics call this painting one of the 1/2 dozen most important American paintings of the early 19th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George_Caleb_Bingham_The_Jolly_Flatboarmen.jp g

When Manoogian bought the painting many years ago [[I think he paid $5.5 million), it was on loan to the National Gallery in Washington on the Mall, with the stipulation that it stay there for a set period of time longer. It recently went on tour, and its' current whereabouts I have not been able to ascertain online. Perhaps Manoogian's picture will be coming home to Michigan [[he has a collection of art at his Masco HQ in Taylor, and a lot of masterpieces on loan or gifts to the DIA). So technically this painting is not a DIA acquisition [[yet).

And then there are the Van Gogh's at the DIA. The DIA's finest Van Gogh is a portrait of Joseph Roulin [[gift of Josephine Clay Ford originally in the Ford House in GPS)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_the_Postman_Joseph_Roulin_[[1888)_ van_Gogh_DIA.jpg

[beachboy]

Thank you, Gistok, for a very cogent summary of DIA's jewels!!

[Wild]

Does anyone know what would be considered the DIA's most prestigious piece of artwork? If another museum could pick one piece from the DIA's collection what would it be? Just curious.

I'm thinking the Van Goghs and the piece of the Gate of Istar.

[1953]

Coaccession, stop being a jerk.

These paintings were donated or purchased with the intention that they be kept in perpetuity for public benefit.

They are not for sale.

[Gistok]

I'm thinking the Van Goghs and the piece of the Gate of Istar.

That piece of the Ishtar gate is small potatoes compared to the Berlin Pergamon Museum's entire gate....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/youngro...n/photostream/