Author: pennygentieu
-
Ward Canaday and the Reflection Gallery
I wonder what Ward Canaday, “Father of the Jeep,” would think, knowing the gallery that he endowed and was built in 1982 for blockbuster exhibitions, the Ward M. Canaday Gallery, is getting repurposed for a history of glass gallery (never mind that the Glass Pavilion was built in 2006 to house the glass collection, but […]
-
TMA’s “Fast Following” at the detriment of Toledoans
They won’t tell us, but by doing deep searches on the internet, we can see what they are doing at our expense. Adam Levine, the fast follower We took a deep dive into the specific strategies utilized in pursuing innovation and decided that we wanted to be a “fast follower….” …we look to other, larger […]
-
TMA’s “40 year” talking points
TMA’s “40 year” talking points leveraging a paradigm shift Sara Jane DeHoff President of the Board of Directors, 2023-2025 Sara Jane DeHoff was not the first female president (chair) of the museum’s board of directors, but at age 79 in 2023 she was the oldest person to ever step into that role. It’s a pretty […]
-
TMA: Succeeding at Failure
It’s been quite the week in the hellscape that is the new Toledo Museum of Art. On Monday, we found out that our 57 impressionist paintings were just shown in Traviso, Italy, with three more paintings added to it so now the total of that show is 60. We were not informed by the museum […]
-
The 21st Century Battle of Toledo
I love this story about the Toledo Museum of Art. The author, James Moore, kindly granted me permission to share it here. They are the words of a highly distinguished curator who got his professional start at the museum. James Moore left Toledo to become the first director of the Albuquerque Museum of Art and […]
-
About the Petition to Enforce Libbey’s Will
Updated June 7, 2026 The Toledo Museum of Art has undergone major changes in recent years that raise serious questions about whether its current direction remains faithful to Edward Drummond Libbey’s original intent. Attendance has fallen sharply since the pandemic and has never recovered, while expenses have greatly risen and the number of exhibitions has […]
-
When Stewardship Becomes Displacement
What Toledo Is Losing: Stewardship Across Time I find myself comparing Edward Drummond Libbey and Ibrahim Mahama. I began thinking about Ibrahim Mahama because my work along with my daughter’s work is currently part of an exhibition in one of the cultural spaces he has created in Ghana. More than a century apart, the two […]
-
Toledo Museum of Art’s symbolic generosity while its own institutions collapse
With Lourdes University on the verge of closing, the Toledo Museum of Art was busy generating national press for purchasing a painting from Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama—an acquisition framed as an act of institutional rescue. Talladega College, a small Southern college with an enrollment of roughly 700 students, faced a financial crisis. The Toledo […]
-
TMA’s $25M Port Authority Bond Scandal
The Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, led by TMA Board Secretary Thomas Winston, approved an $11M bond (part of a $25M total with Cleveland-Cuyahoga $7M and Columbus-Franklin $7M) for TMA’s HVAC system, exceeding the building’s $23.16M value (now $27.9M post-2024 tax hike). Vice Chair Sharon Speyer sits on both boards. This “port authority facility” funds a […]
-
Open letter to Sara Jane DeHoff, Chair of the Board of the Toledo Museum of Art
Subject: Urgent Follow-Up: Further Concerns Over TMA’s Disposition of Core Artworks and Lack of Transparency Dear Ms. DeHoff, I hope you are well. I am writing again as a deeply concerned citizen regarding the troubling decisions at the Toledo Museum of Art, and to follow up on my February 10 email—which, like my previous correspondence, […]