Dear Honorable Trustees of the Toledo Museum of Art:
What are you doing to our museum? As members and visitors, you now racially profile us by zip code and categorize us by age. Our art is profiled through subjective categorization with your study determining that “a collections audit indicated the greatest imbalances exist across gender, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, nationality and geography, and material/medium.”
Please explain how you determine the sexual orientation of a painting? If you did another audit to look into the sexual preferences of the artists that are already in the museum, I’m sure you would find a lot of diversity.
A few decades ago, the museum stopped doing their great Saturday classes for about 2,500 Toledo public school children, a very diverse group by the way, and then wondered why young people were not coming to the museum. And so they started a 24-47 membership category. Short lived because the members got older. So they switched their focus from age to race.
So many categories, and statistics show an imbalance, so you deaccession our best paintings and use them as currency. Fast and easy money when you sell the famous ones. Why don’t you do a fundraiser instead? Or are you just trying to make a point at the expense of our valuable French Impressionist paintings?
Perhaps you don’t appreciate the gifts the museum has been given because you didn’t have to pay for them. And after a great donor and supporter of black, white, and even female local artists, such as Mrs. C. Lockhart McKelvy is dead, say 50 years or so, you don’t need to remember her, either. In fact, why bother remembering the 110th anniversary of the opening of the new building, because it fell on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year, a day which you opened the museum on a Monday, for maybe the first time ever. The museum’s anniversary was not in the program; it was not to be remembered or embraced, it could not be part of the communal memory. It somehow was a conflict of interest, you couldn’t figure out how to honor the museum on Martin Luther King Day, as if they can’t go together. So fervent you are to push away your history, because it’s just too white, like the building that you apologize for being so off-putting.
Somehow, a press release was leaked to a TV station, who did announce the museum’s anniversary that day. But it seems you made sure that no one who worked at the museum that day knew, or let on that they knew, that little fact, in the museum’s effort to promote “diversity.” (I was there that day, and I asked about their anniversary, and nobody knew.) So our history gets pushed down the memory hole. We are told that we need a realignment. We need “unconscious bias training” and experts are brought in. We need to sell our masterpieces because, face it, they are just too white. Too French!
But isn’t all of this just overcompensation for Director Adam Levine’s infamous George Floyd memo mistake? Could it be that Levine is running amok and that we are just too nice to say, hey, stop it! I think it’s obvious to many that this wild publicity stunt that draws world attention to Adam Levine is a stepping stone for his next position, and that we will be left with a museum collection that doesn’t actually speak to our community or reflect the museum’s own rich history.
We just had a director whose program was visual literacy — how to look at art. And now we have a director who tells us what art we should be relating to, according to our genetics and personal heritage. Wow! He’s telling us that if you are black, you shouldn’t relate to our French Impressionist paintings, since they were done by white European men. Even though the Impressionist movement was such a historical artistic break-through, and has led to other important movements, and that these paintings are so accessible and have influenced all kinds of artists regardless of the color of their skin.
Unfortunately for Levine’s attempt to imply that somehow the museum is not inclusive and diverse is the overwhelming proof of the museum’s longstanding history of inclusion and diversity.
Adam Levine is using us like an anthropology project, and he’s applying some heady mathematics. Not to mention psychology, writing this to us in his April 8 announcement of the deaccessioning: “As Edward Drummond Libbey put it in 1912: ‘Let the multitudinous array of the mediocre be relegated to the past and in its place be found the highest quality, the best examples and the recognition of only those thoughts which will stand for all time.’”
As if our three beloved, popular, and very valuable, paintings, that until very recently hung on the walls, paintings that people came to see, are being deaccessioned because they are mediocre. Yet they will bring $62 million. And Toledoans are so nice, letting Adam Levine remake the museum because of ethnic and sexual orientation results from an audit (to draw attention away from his memo mistake). He conveniently erases our progressive and inclusive history, projecting a sense of shame on us for having our magnificent French Impressionist collection, which he projects on the museum itself. As if the museum cannot buy art fast enough to make up for the so-called diversity inequities. But actually that has been what the museum has been doing for the past many years, if you look at the new art and the shows. There have been ethnically diverse shows covering the world since the beginnings of the museum.
We were always taught to only buy art that we love. It takes courage, as Otto Wittmann said of Mrs. McKelvy’s collection. But today, the museum seems to have forgotten that principle. Instead, they do audits and make graphs; they profile and compartmentalize. They tell us what to like on the basis of our background or age or sexual orientation, that certain art should speak to us when other art should not. Instead of bringing us together, they pull us apart, and needless to say, love of art doesn’t have anything to do with it.
Adam Levine should not be selling off our three French Impressionist masterpieces by MATISSE, RENOIR, AND CÉZANNE to raise even more money in the name of diversity when we just had a major fundraiser in 2017 that brought in $43 million, not to mention the numerous endowments the museum already has for buying art, and the Art Ambassadors, the Georgia Welles Apollo Society, and the Libbey Circle who also buy new art.
Let’s save these three great French Impressionist paintings. Let’s not allow our great collections to be used by the director to get attention in the art world, to make his statement – all in the name of damage control. Our museum is already inclusive and diverse and it does not need to be rebranded.
Our brand new woke Toledo Museum of Art
guess what? Your new branding is old.
“We will develop an inclusive brand voice and experience that inspires all people and awakens their connection to the deep human story we all share.” Gary Gonya, Director of “Brand Strategy”
That’s what all museums do.
From the beginning of the Toledo museum, there have been people of all ethnicities and walks of life attending art classes and participating in art shows, and shows that speak to everybody, and to act as if we haven’t been inclusive is insulting.
Toledo has always been diverse, and to imply that Toledo has not been diverse is incorrect. Adam Levine, the new director, is the one who wrote the infamous memo after the George Floyd murder stating that the museum’s position on that should be neutral. We certainly were outraged! As I venture to guess were most people in Toledo.
Adam Levine does not have to overcompensate for his mistaken memo by trying to assert that the museum members and patrons and contributors were ever the least bit not for diversity or inclusive. Our history at the museum has always encouraged diversity through their century of Saturday art classes for Toledo Public School system students and others. The TAA show has always been inclusionary since the beginning. The history of shows at the museum defies their argument that somehow the museum is not inclusive or diverse – that is completely false.
There is overwhelming proof that the museum has always been all for diversity and their free open-door policy has alway been like that. The door is open and it’s free, and it was made that way by the progressive founders in 1901, and has stayed that way for 121 years.
The museum does not need to be rebranded because of the new director’s mistaken memo, and Adam Levine should not be selling off our three French Impressionist masterpieces by MATISSE, RENOIR, AND CÉZANNEto raise even more money in the name of diversity when we just had a major fundraiser in 2017 that brought in $43 million, not to mention the numerous endowments the museum already has for buying art, and the Ambassadors, the Georgia Welles Apollo Society, and the Libbey Circle who also buy new art.
Enough already with the overcompensation for the mistake he made with his memo.We have more than enough money to buy new diversified art, as the museum has been doing all along, (see list below showing new acquisitions in just the past eight years) without selling our French Impressionist masterpieces. Unless he’s just selling them to make a statement.
If they really want to be more inclusive and accessible, they could make their parking lot free.
Maybe we need some diversity in our directors. How about someone from Toledo? I’d even be happy with a woman.
Here are some of the shows from the past few years that would be considered diverse and inclusive:
2013
Crossing Cultures: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Art
2014
INSIGHT: CONTEMPORARY SENSORY WORKS Works of art by three major contemporary artists—Pinaree Sanpitak of Thailand, Magdalene Odundo of Kenya, and Aminah Robinson of theUnited States
PEOPLE GET READY: 50 YEARS OF CIVIL RIGHTS
2015
A COLLABORATION WITH THAI ARTIST PINAREE SANPITAK
Guest Artist Pavilion Project (GAPP) resident Pinaree Sanpitak, The Hammock
2016(focusing on “representation” shows)
Indigenous Beauty: Masterworks of American Indian Art from the Diker Collection
The Rise of Sneaker Culture
2017
Kara Walker, Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)
Doreen Garner, GAPP artist
2018
Glorious Splendor: Treasures of Early Christian Art
Fired Up: Contemporary Glass by Women Artists
The Mummies:From Egypt to Toledo
EXPANDED VIEWS: NATIVE AMERICAN ART IN FOCUS
2019
Global Conversations: Art in Dialogue
Life is a Highway: Art and the American Culture
Anila Quayyum Agha: Between Light and Shadow
Expanded Views II: Native American Art in Focus
Mel Chin
2020
Yayoi Kusama: Fireflies on the Water
Mirror, Mirror: The prints of Alison Saar
Thornton Dial: Trip to the Mountaintop
Picture ID: Contemporary African American American Works on Paper
New, “diverse” acquisitions include:
2013
Seven Sisters: Tjungkara Ken acrylic on linen
2015
Nam June Paik (South Korean, 1932- 2006), Beuys Voice
2016
Kara Walker (American, born 1969), 15 prints from the portfolio Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)
Alfredo Jaar (Chilean, born 1956), Be Afraid of the Enormity of the Possible
Silvia Levenson (Argentinian, born 1957), Strange Little Girl #7
Gajin Fujita (American, born 1972), Hood Rats
Saibai Island, Torres Strait (Northern Islands, Australia), Mask
Alice Neel (American, 1900–1984), Nancy and the Rubber Plant
2017
Ancient Roman, Season Sarcophagus. Marble, about 280–290 CE
Ancient Roman, Bust of a Flavian Matron. Marble, late 1st–early 2nd century CE
Alison Saar (American, born 1956), Topsy and the Golden Fleece
Joyce Scott (American, born 1948), Nuanced Veil
Agus Suwage (Indonesian, born 1959), Keberangkatan
Wendy Red Star (American, Crow, born 1981), iilaa/ee =car (goes by itself)+ ii =by means of which+ daanniili = we parade
William Villalongo (Amencan, born 1975), Beautiful Boys.
LaToya Ruby Frazier (American, born 1982), 2 photographs from the series, Flint is Family: a. Shea at work driving bus 38, Route 45 for Flint Community Schools Transportation, First Student Co. b. Shea Zion departing Flint Ml for Mississippi at 4 a.m. on June 25th, 2016
2020:
Thornton Dial (American, 1928-2016), Trip to the Mountaintop
FROM THE TOLEDO MUSEUM OF ART’S MISSION STATEMENT:
COMMUNITY RELEVANCE: We will be an integral member of our community and will be responsive to issues of community concern and importance, particularly as they relate to the arts.
VALUES: As individuals, we pledge that our relationships with one another and with our audiences will be governed by: Integrity; Respect; Trust; Cooperation; Positive Approach; and Self-Discipline.
A tribute to the Mrs. McKelvys of the Toledo Museum of Art
From the introduction of The Collection of Mrs. C. Lockhart McKelvy
Written by Otto Wittmann, Director, Toledo Museum of Art, 1964
Margaret Gosline McKelvy was one of Toledo’s great benefactors, yet she was so modest and so reticent that few knew all that she did for the community in which she lived. Her joyous and lively interest in the arts and people expressed itself in two ways that profoundly affected this community through its Art Museum. Her father, William A. Gosline, Jr., who was President of the Museum from 1934 to 1947, had taught her to love and collect art. She had the courage to acquire only works of art she liked and always considered that one day her collection would be the heritage of all of us in this community. Her acquisitions were planned to supplement the collections of the Art Museum yet they remain a very personal expression of her strong and sure taste. Her collection will strengthen and enrich the Art Museum, giving pleasure to all who visit it.
Mrs. McKelvy liked young people and helped many to obtain the education necessary to pursue a useful life. In the arts she gave scholarships to promising young artists, so that they could become technically proficient. Many became art teachers, and are now benefiting countless children through their teaching. With typical modesty, Mrs. McKelvy gave these scholarships either through the Museum, as Gosline Scholarships, honoring her father, or through the Toledo Board of Education, as Gilmartin Scholarships, honoring Elizabeth C. Gilmartin, former Supervisor of Art Education in Toledo’s public schools. Few knew the name of the donor.
Mrs. McKelvy was a lifelong resident of our community, served on the boards of many charitable institutions in addition to being a Trustee of this Museum. The delightful and personal collection of works of art given to the Museum by Mrs. McKelvy is recorded in this catalogue. Her pictures and objects will give pleasure to many. Her generous and lighthearted spirit will live on in these works of art and in the hearts of all those whom she helped, and who are now helping others to learn from and enjoy the arts.
A collection of valuable French Impressionism and other French art which was made from a woman’s point of view, Mrs. McKelvy used her critical feminine eye to collect art with the intention of giving it to the Toledo Museum of Art. And now the museum is selling her Renoir.
Check out Mrs. McKelvy’s bequeathed collection that was published in this booklet by the Toledo Museum of Art in 1964:
Goodbye, Matisse, Renoir, and Cézanne. The new director of the Toledo Museum of Art, Adam Levine, tells us that you are no good for the museum anymore, that we have too many of you, that you are not even that good, that you don’t serve the community fairly, even though you are so popular, that people go to see you first when they visit the museum, and 6,700 people came to see you in the Impressionism show on the Saturday after Thanksgiving one year.
Matisse, Renoir, and Cézanne brought the community together. The Matisse, Renoir, and Cézanne are great works of art that the Toledo community loved and made us proud of our Toledo Museum of Art. They are part of the fiber of the museum that is us, the diverse and artistic Toledo community that makes up the Toledo Museum of Art.
Mrs. Margaret McKelvy, LeMaxie Glover’s benefactor, bequeathed The Bather by Pierre Auguste Renoir to the Toledo Museum of Art. It was part of her curated personal collection of French art.
“She always considered that one day her collection would be the heritage of all of us in this community.” – Otto Wittmann, Director, 1964
And now they are getting rid of a major painting from her collection under the guise of diversity.
Could it be that the new museum director is using us, making half of us feel ashamed that we have so much French and European art, and planting the seed that the other half needs to question whether or not French and European art really speaks to them, as if it should only speak to people of French and European descent? Could it be that it is the director who cannot relate to the art in our art museum, since his expertise is in ancient art, anthropology, and mathematics?
If it were not for Mrs. McKelvy’s generous support of LeMaxie Glover, our local art community would not be as diverse as it is today. Our museum has always been progressive and welcoming to every person in this community, no matter what ones’ personal heritage.
LeMaxie Glover was influenced by the impressionistic work of Renoir, as were many art students in Toledo. LeMaxie Glover learned his craft and his art at the Toledo Museum of Art School of Design, and Mrs. McKelvy gave him a scholarship to Cranbrook Academy of Art. McKelvy was an important patron of Glover’s. In return, LeMaxie Glover was not only one of Toledo’s best sculptors, but he also served unselfishly as an art teacher at Woodward and Scott High Schools for many years, helping generations of Toledo youth appreciate and create art.
As if they need to sell our masterpieces in order to buy more art, anyway.
It makes a good story in Art News
The museum can buy more diverse art without selling their French Impressionist masterpieces, with the $4 million that they can spend on art every year from the income of the Libbey endowment alone. Many Toledoans treasure the masterpieces in our museum. Selling off these paintings to get a quick $40 million to buy “diverse” art (with their eye on a 12th century object from Southeast Asia) is foolish. They could do a fundraiser. The museum curators often add one hundred or more artworks each year. Do they really have sell our venerable, valuable French Impressionist masterpieces from important collections to buy more art? They will be losing the support of the bequeathing community.
Perhaps in the future, donors should loan, instead of bequeath their great works of art to the museum, so when a new director comes along and wants to deaccession it, the artwork can be given to another museum that might appreciate it, without the first museum getting to cash it in. I wonder how Mrs. McKelvy’s heirs feel about the museum’s deaccessioning of her Renoir. At least if it’s going to be monetized, Mrs. McKelvy’s many descendants should benefit, not the new museum director who is actively diminishing her legacy and erasing the museum’s rich history.
In his April 8 letter to museum members about the sale of the three paintings, Adam Levine went into detail about the Libbey Endowment Fund but didn’t even mention Mrs. McKelvy, whose Renoir was given directly by her, and not bought with the funds of the Libbey Endowment, as were the other two paintings.
It must be a very touchy subject these days among Toledo’s wealthy patrons who are thinking about bequeathing art. Because the artwork is wanted today, but “get it the hell out of here” tomorrow, as their memory will be. (That is, depending on the whim of the new museum directors, who are not Toledoans, and will probably be getting the hell out of here as soon as they can, too. Lately, since 2005 or so, directors of the Toledo Museum of Art tend stay around for only seven years.)
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Isaac Paul Rader, famous for his paperback cover illustrations, is “entirely a Toledo product.”
He learned his craft by taking classes at the Toledo Museum of Art; his teacher was Karl Kappes. At the tender age of 14 (he might have been 15), he won top prize in the fourth annual Toledo Area Artists Exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art. That made him famous – his museum win was a true legend enduring all of his life and written about in his obits!
He moved to Detroit, where, in his twenties, he made a name for himself as the premiere artist for official portraits of judges.
Then he moved to New York and became a magazine illustrator. His paperback covers, created in the 1960’s, are highly collectable.
The first prize going to a 15-year old caused quite a stir in Toledo — but he had to win. His stunning painting, which was painted life-size, was better than any other entry. The jury included Nina Spalding Stevens (head of the art school and wife of the museum director) and Blake-More Godwin (who would become the next museum director, in 1927.)
That was the last year the Federation did their own judging. For every Toledo area artist show after that, the Federation utilized judges from out of town (until the last two, in 2013 and 2014, which were judged by the museum director and associate director– we know what happened after that…)
Another reason to bring back the real Toledo Area Artists Exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art, to help Toledo artists become famous like Isaac Paul Rader!
Subject: May Show Season
Date: 04/06/2022 11:19AM
To: ALevine@toledomuseum.org, rsewell@toledomuseum.org
Dear Adam and Rhonda,
I just posted a new-found artist, Isaac Paul Rader, on artistsoftoledo.com – I thought you might be interested. At age 14, he won top prize in the TAA show, and went on to have quite a career as an artist. Just an example of the missed opportunities for young Toledo artists without the museum’s annual area artists show. It means something to be shown at the Toledo Museum of Art – it can really change one’s life!
It’s exciting to see the changes at the museum — how is the Community Gallery coming along?