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 shift from Libbey’s “art for the people” to global elitism, as 57 masterworks head to Auckland.
The museum went to the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, asking them to install Port Authority Facilities into the museum in the form of an HVAC system. The port authority agreed and posted a bond for the museum as a part of their .4 mill operating levy that was passed by voters on November 5. More money came from the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority and the Columbus-Franklin County Finance Authority for the total of $24.89 million for a new HVAC system.
The approved amount was even more than the property value of the museum building itself, $23.16M (now $27.9M post-Sept. 2024 tax hike).
How does the cost of an HVAC system exceed the value of the museum building itself? And why would the museum get the Port Authority involved? Interestingly, the Secretary of the Toledo Museum of Art Board of Directors, Thomas Winston, is also the President and CEO of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority. The Vice Chair of the Toledo Museum of Art Board of Directors, Sharon Speyer, is on the Board of Directors of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, among other interested parties, including a banker. In addition, Sharon Speyer recently retired as Regional President of Huntington Bank, the bank that is underwriting the bond. Hmm…
We’ve been told that the museum is undergoing renovations, but if the AC costs this much – payments guessing to be around $2M per year for a 30-year term, where is the money coming from for the rest of the “improvements,” “remodeling” and “reinstallation?”
The recently renovated Cloister gallery gets disassembled (unbelievable, and will cost millions) to be moved just 100 feet to the east. New technologies and seating for every gallery, with art shifted around and arranged chronologically. The Glass Pavilion, which cost $30 million to build in 2006, will be repurposed (also unbelievable) as the glass gets removed and scattered amongst the art in the main building arranged by date.
The museum, being cagey, did not acknowledge the $25M “port authority facility” arrangement when asked in February about the cost for moving the Cloister Gallery for the news story, Patrons pay tribute to Cloister Gallery, Laurie Bertke, Toledo Free Press, Feb 8, 2025
The museum did not provide details about the cost for moving The Cloister. The spokesperson wrote that TMA is privately funded and the project is one small part of the larger reinstallation that is being funded through individual and corporate philanthropy.
Oh, really?
What will fall through the cracks during this seismic shift?
The Impressionist gallery will be replaced with the history of glass in Toledo and the Libbey Glass Co. – a boon for the City of Toledo but a lousy consolation prize for its citizens. I’m sorry Toledoans but we’re taking your paintings. But here’s something to make you feel proud about living in the Glass City. You get to know all about the 19th century history of the glass industry AND the museum history. It’s not quite the famous Impressionist paintings you love and expect to see here, but trust us, museums have a magic power to put anything on the wall and it will be deemed great and you will love it. “The superpower that an art museum has is when something goes up on the wall, it’s considered good. We set the canon.” (Adam Levine, 2022)
Remember the sale of the three French Impressionist paintings for $60 million in 2022, and the promise for new art from it, which never happened? From paintings gifted by Edward Drummond Libbey, they took the proceeds and made themselves a separate, private fund with it, duplicating the size of the Libbey Endowment, instead of putting it back into the Libbey Endowment, thereby both distancing themselves from the founder and keeping the money secret from the public. My guest editorial in The Blade published on March 18, 2023 called for an investigation.
I got flack from the establishment for this editorial (for example, here is an email exchange I had with City Council), and I wasn’t allowed to share it on FB groups. The museum even tried to get most of my editorial retracted, but in the end, they couldn’t change one word because everything I wrote was either factual or my educated opinion. It is notable today that the TMA budget is actually $5M more now ($23M), when in 2021 they projected it to be only $2M more ($20M). They don’t have much in recent exhibitions to show for it, and that includes the current show, “In a New Light,” specially hung paintings from their own collection that is presently being dismantled four months before the end of the show. It is my opinion that their dive into politics is a smokescreen for what is really going on, praying on Toledo’s modesty and blind trust to allow them free reign. That new branding on which they spent a fortune? It wasn’t made with Toledoans in mind.
A promise broken
The promise made to always keep the remaining Impressionist paintings on the walls, but now a secretive loan to Auckland of 57 masterworks for a show called “A Century of Modern Art” breaks that promise, as they pull works off the wall and changing the end date of “In a New Light” with no explanation. They don’t care how this looks to the locals.
If our mission is to integrate art into the lives of people, then rehanging our collection is only half of the equation. The reinstallation offers us a chance to go back to the conceptual as well as the physical studs, rethinking the museum experience for the 21st century. We are developing exciting plans on this front that we believe can create different paradigms for engagement. –Adam Levine
trading public funds for private prestige—
undermining its independence, veering from its roots
Such a massive export under the guise of renovations: 57 of Toledo’s most valuable paintings, Impressionist through 20th-century “offering a sweeping survey of the visionary painters who transformed modern art.” (Wow, wouldn’t we love to get to see that show?) This loan, which I believe is over four times larger than any other loan has ever been from the Toledo Museum to another institution (such as 12 to the Frick in 2002 for the celebration of TMA’s centennial), is on a par as if the Louvre was making the loan, a world-famous museum that has 7,500 paintings, not a mid-sized museum with only 750 paintings. These museum “stewards” are trading Toledo’s heritage for global prestige. They want to be a “global player” at the local public’s expense. Local government loves the free publicity. Libbey’s gift of art for the people is being taken from away from the people to be used for political exploitation, boosting international clout – public assets serving elite networks instead of serving the modest Toledo public as Libbey’s gift was intended – it is an utter betrayal of Toledo’s soul.
