(Example) The Kemper Museum of Art at the University of Washington, St. Louis
The Kemper Museum of Art at Washington University, St. Louis illustrates how a museum may change its collecting interests, resulting in a massive sale of what is in its collection. Before 1943, the University Art Museum had a small and average collection of objects and artifacts which had been taken in with no "screening committee" (H. W. Janson, “Centennial Address” (1981) in Sabine Eckmann, H. W. Janson and the Legacy of Modern Art at Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis: Washington University Gallery of Art, 2002), 45.). However, after H.W. Janson, a famous art historian, became involved in the university, the faculty decided to give the collection a more focused direction. This led to a large deaccessioning of the university collection. The school is estimated to have sold "approximately one sixth of [Washington University’s] entire collection" ( Janson, “The New Art Collection,” 201).
The sale of these artworks at Kende Galleries, the art gallery inside Gimbel's Department Store in New York, garnered a good sum of money for the University. Janson then poured these new funds into purchasing art--exclusively modern art (Janson, “The New Art Collection,” 202-204). The museum bought 26 works of art, carefully adding exemplary artworks to the collection. Today, the Kemper Museum is still a site of important modern and contemporary collections. The museum has stayed committed to its collecting practices that it established over 70 years ago.
