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Creating a Collection: A Tour Through the Smith College Museum of Art

Thomas Wilmer Dewing's "Lady with a Lute"

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Purchased One way for the SCMA to acquire works of art it wants to add to its collection is to buy them. The museum can buy works from galleries and dealers, and directly from the artists creating the objects.

Buying art directly from artists ensures the artwork's authenticity, demonstrates a commitment to the working creative, and shows an active interest in contemporary art. Early in its existence, Smith demonstrated an interest in and commitment to these values as a teaching institution dedicated to the arts.

In the 1870s, Smith often bought artworks directly from the artists who created them. Examples of this include Abbott Handerson Thayer's Winged Figure (now at the Art Institute of Chicago), Thomas Wilmer Dewing's Lady with a Lute (now in the National Gallery of Art), and Winslow Homer's Song of the Lark (now at the Chrysler Museum of Art).

Bought from a dealer
When being re-matriated (added back into the collection) in 2015, Ramesseum at Thebes was spotted and bought from a dealer in New York City. The SCMA used money from the Hillyer-Mather-Tryon Fund (a combined source of funds given by three major donors to the SCMA) to purchase the artwork.

Click on these other artworks to explore works PURCHASED by the SCMA
Why Museums Remove Objects from their Collections As we have learned from WHY and HOW museums collect, collections are somewhat fluid things. They change. And they do not always grow. Sometimes museums remove objects from their collections—this is called deaccessioning.

Just as museums add to collections for a variety of reasons, museums remove objects from collections for a range of reasons. If an artwork is considered to be a forgery, in bad shape, or a duplicate of something else in the collection, it may be sold or given to an institution that can learn from such a work.

Also, if a museum changes its mission or goals, it may need to decide if certain artworks in its collection still serve the same purpose they were acquired to.

Dewing's Lady with Lute was deaccessioned from the SCMA in the 1940s, along with nearly 100 other works of art. This painting was sold by Gimbels in 1946, on behalf of the SCMA. In May 1947, Dr. Walter Timme bought the painting, which he later donated to the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C.

It's important to be methodical and reasoned when removing objects from a collection, after which they will probably be difficult (or impossible) to get back. In order to avoid regret, the museum needs to be aware of changing circumstances around issues of taste and space. The importance of a central mission behind a museum's collecting practices is intended to safeguard against changing trends. Additionally, limitations of space can change over time, so this also should not be a primary motivation for what a museum chooses to keep or dispose of.
To learn more about why museums remove objects from the collection, click on the links below.