SLU to auction 177 pieces of art

CANTON — St. Lawrence University's Richard F. Brush Art Galley is auctioning 177 works valued at upwards of $200,000.

The college said it is deaccessioning, or formally removing, the art from its catalogue in order to make more room for other works in its 7,000-piece permanent collection.

Blanchard's Auction Service will sell the works, which mostly consist of postwar abstract paintings and landscapes as well as several sculptures. The auction will be at 1 p.m. Oct. 30 in its hall on Morley-Potsdam Road.

This is the biggest auction St. Lawrence has ever had of items from its art collection.

Cathy L. Tedford, director of the Brush Art Gallery, said that the university is running out of space to store and care for works. All of the pieces that will be auctioned were acquired before SLU instituted standards for the types of artwork the college wanted in its collection.

"We are not a decorating collection. We acquire works that faculty can use for teaching and students can use for research. Most of these pieces, if not all of them, haven't been used in 20 years at least, and they take up lot of room," she said.

About 65 of the works being auctioned are oil landscape paintings by Potsdam native Annie Lenney, who died in 1984. There are also numerous abstract paintings by Alfred D. Crimi and John Von Wicht.

The most valuable works on the auction block are two paintings by the abstract expressionist Michael Goldberg, which are expected to go for up to $60,000.

"St. Lawrence has a few collections where we have maybe 100 or 200 works of art by an individual artist and the college just doesn't have the resources to manage large collections like that," Ms. Tedford said. "The pieces that were chosen to be deaccessioned are lesser pieces by some of these artists, so we're not going to sell off gems. In different contexts, they might be better utilized, whether in a personal collection or in other institutions."

The gallery has been planning to cull its collection for the past year. Ms. Tedford said SLU anticipates it will be able to purchase Inuit prints, which can be used by students in Canadian or environmental studies, with some of the proceeds from the auction.

"This is something that most museums and galleries do from time to time," college spokeswoman Macreena A. Doyle said. "We can't acquire more pieces if we don't have space for them."

There will be two previews to allow the public to view the collection before the auction. They will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Oct. 29 and at 3 p.m. Oct. 30, before the 5 p.m. auction. Bids also are being taken online.