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

Why Museums Remove Objects from their Collections

As we have learned from WHY and HOW museums collect, collections are pretty 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 in bad shape, a forgery, 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. More difficult to navigate is if a museum changes its mission or goals and must 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 Gimbel's Department store 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. 

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