A Christmas Miracle

We Saved "The Gross Clinic"!

The following report appeared in the Inquirer this morning...

'Gross Clinic' to stay in city

By Stephan Salisbury


Capping as wild a fund-raising ride as this city has ever seen, Mayor Street gleefully announced yesterday that Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic had been purchased by local institutions and would remain in Philadelphia.

It was a successful conclusion that few thought possible only several weeks ago.

At a packed City Hall news conference, officials said that the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts would share ownership of the 1875 masterpiece.

The two museums, which have led a frantic six-week fund-raising campaign to buy the huge canvas from Thomas Jefferson University, have agreed to take on a still-undetermined amount of debt and pay a record $68 million for what is widely viewed as an embodiment of the city's intellectual and creative life.

Officials highlighted four large contributions to the fund-raising effort: $10 million from the Annenberg Foundation, chaired by Leonore Annenberg; $3 million from H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest; $3 million from Joseph Neubauer; and $3 million from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

In total, over the last several weeks, about $30 million has been raised and more than 2,000 contributions have been received from about 30 states, officials said.

"I think it is a fabulous day - a fabulous day for Philadelphia, a fabulous day for Thomas Eakins," said Anne d'Harnoncourt, director of the Art Museum. "We are all thrilled and humbled by the extraordinary outpouring of support."

"This has truly been an example of civic pride and accomplishment for the entire community," said Lenfest, chairman of the Art Museum board.

Wachovia Bank has agreed to provide the backup financing that allowed the museums to sign an agreement of sale yesterday with Jefferson. No city or other government money is involved in the purchase.

Hugh Long, chief executive officer for Wachovia's MidAtlantic Banking Group, declined to provide any details on the financing. At one point he said, "It's all a secret."

Museum officials likened Wachovia's role to the provision of bridge financing.

Fund-raising for the painting continues, the officials emphasized. Jefferson had set a Dec. 26 deadline for local institutions to put their money on the table. Now, however, the university has extended that deadline to Jan. 31.

If a gap exists between contributions and sale price at the end of January, Wachovia will cover it, the officials said.

Herbert Riband, vice chairman of the academy's board, said it is possible that some works might be sold from museum collections to help cover the costs of the transaction. But he said that was only a possibility.

Jefferson officials did not attend the news conference. Brian Harrison, chairman of Jefferson's board of trustees, issued a statement saying that the university "is pleased" that the painting will remain in Philadelphia and become "accessible to millions of people" visiting the museums. He added that the university was "also pleased that our agreement of sale with PMA and PAFA gave them an additional 30 days to continue the fund-raising period."

The painting, now housed in Alumni Hall, 1020 Locust St., will be on view in the near future first at the Art Museum and then at the Pennsylvania Academy. It will move back and forth after that, probably with lengthy stops at each institution, but details have not been finalized.

Street said he is sending legislation to City Council that would "establish a registry of all important" objects and works of art in the city. Such a registry, he said, would serve as an alarm system if a work is threatened with sale or removal. He offered no further details yesterday.

On Nov. 10, Jefferson stunned the city and its own community by announcing that The Gross Clinic, which had been purchased by alumni for $200 and given to the school in 1878, would be sold. The buyers were a partnership of an unbuilt Arkansas museum, backed by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Christie's auction house brokered the deal, which contained a provision giving local institutions 45 days to match the purchase price and retain the painting in Philadelphia.

At the time, the university said that proceeds from the sale would go toward fulfilling an ambitious 10-year strategic plan that would transform Jefferson's Center City campus.

But many at Jefferson, particularly university alumni, were shocked by news of the sale, and the alumni association urged its members to support the local fund-raising effort.

Yesterday, Lorraine King, president of the alumni association, and Stanton N. Smullens, a member of the alumni executive committee, both said they were extremely gratified by the outcome.

King, who has said the painting represented the heart of Jefferson, said its proximity will at least allow doctors and students to visit it.

Smullens said, "Schools are not bricks and mortar; there's also a soul, and this [painting] is tied to Jefferson's soul completely."

The initial buyers of the painting - the National Gallery and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., where Wal-Mart has its headquarters - issued a joint statement following the new deal:

"We are disappointed that Eakins' Gross Clinic will not be coming to the nation's capital or America's heartland. However, we are pleased for the city of Philadelphia."

Officials at the two museums had no further comment.

The object of all the attention is a dramatic 8-by-61/2-foot painting that depicts Dr. Samuel Gross, an acclaimed Jefferson surgeon, conducting an operation before students in the school's amphitheater.

Gross is caught in a shaft of light, a bloody scalpel in his right hand. His patient, a boy, lies beside him, a large surgical incision in his thigh. The boy's mother cringes behind Gross, and the artist painted himself observing and drawing in the background.

Eakins, born in Philadelphia and a graduate of Central High School, was 31 when he took on the subject. His intention was to test his growing artistic powers and to create an homage to Philadelphia's greatest medical achievements; the painting was, then, a metaphor for the city's progressive intellectual life.

But squeamish art jurors at the Centennial Exhibition, where Eakins hoped to show it in 1876, rejected the work, citing its gruesomeness.

Jefferson alumni were deeply taken with the painting, however, and purchased it from Eakins to present to their alma mater, where Gross taught. The painting has been at the school ever since.

Eakins went on to teach at the Pennsylvania Academy, where in 1878 he was dismissed after removing the loincloth from a male model.

Despite such disappointments, Eakins remained in Philadelphia, painting its citizens and landscapes until his death in 1916.

Since then, his stature as an artist has continued to rise, and the place of The Gross Clinic in the pantheon of American art has been secured. The $68 million being paid for the painting is a record not only for Eakins but also for any pre-World War II work of American art.

At yesterday's press conference, Street said he believed it would have been an "irrevocable loss" if the painting left Philadelphia, and he noted that "a couple of thousand people from all over the country" agreed and voted with their dollars.

D'Harnoncourt said that yesterday's announcement amounted to "poetic justice" for Eakins. "He has always exerted a powerful presence," she said.

And I respectfully part company with some of my blogging "betters" here I know, such as Will Bunch and D-Mac (hey, nice job with the Wal-Mart "happy face"...you can do such cool stuff with Javascript, I know), but as commenter Linda noted in response to Will at "Attytood," you don't sell off your heritage - I don't care what else you can buy with $68 million.

If the Waltons want something to show off at their new gallery, they can stop by the New Jersey Convention Center on Route 130 in Pennsauken. The last I heard, they still have year-round flea markets, and I'm sure they can pick up some LeRoy Neiman paintings for a song.