'Cowboy Singing' masterpiece will grace Denver Art Museum
Mary Voelz Chandler
Published April 23, 2008 at 11:14 a.m.
Photo by Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky
Mark Bockrath, of West Chester, Pa., checks out an 1892 Thomas Eakins painting - Cowboy Singing - that's hanging in the Western American Art Gallery at the Denver Art Museum. Bockrath, a frequent visitor to the Philadelphia Museum, was surprised to see that the painting is now in Denver.
The Denver Art Museum, with a healthy assist from mogul Philip Anschutz, has acquired a multimillion-dollar 1892 painting by noted artist Thomas Eakins.
Cowboy Singing, showing a man in fringed trousers in a chair singing and playing banjo, belonged to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The work, one of the Philadelphia-based artist's few to address the West, went on view Wednesday on the second floor of the Denver museum's Hamilton Building.
The work is now co-owned by the DAM and the Anschutz Collection, in a deal that also resulted in the museum and the collector splitting ownership of the museum's Charles Deas painting Long Jakes (The Rocky Mountain Man).
Neither buyer nor seller would disclose the price for Cowboy Singing, though it should be at least $15 million.
"Never in my life did I think the Denver Art Museum would own a Thomas Eakins," said director Lewis Sharp on Wednesday.
"In the history of American art, Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer have such an important place that works by those artists don't come on the market at a price the museum can approach. We could not have afforded it if Phil (Anschutz) had not stepped forward."
The Denver museum also acquired a sketch and a study by Eakins for a painting Anschutz owns, Cowboys in the Badlands, by selling works from the museum's Harmsen Collection. The two smaller works now hang with Cowboy Singing; all will be incorporated into the Western art galleries later this year.
The Anschutz Collection bought the finished Cowboys in the Badlands in 2003 from the Philadelphia museum for about $5.5 million at auction. The Denver transaction provided the final piece of a civic art funding puzzle in Philadelphia.
The Philadelphia museum and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts had to raise $68 million to keep Eakins' most famous painting - Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic) - in that city. The museums acted after Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton and the National Gallery of Art in Washington sought to buy it from its long-time Philadelphia home, the medical school of Thomas Jefferson University.
After the museum and the academy raised about $37 million, by early 2007, both institutions decided to sell work to make up the difference. The academy sold Eakins' The Cello Player for a reported $15 million. With an equal responsibility to raise money, the Philadelphia museum's new sale could be an equal or greater amount to reach $68 million.
Sharp said Cowboy Singing was purchased in honor of Peter Hassrick, director of the Denver Museum's Petrie Institute of Western American Art.
"Anne d'Harnoncourt called me and said Cowboy Singing is for sale. I'm calling you first,' " said Sharp, referring to the director and chief executive of the Philadelphia museum.
chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2677
Featured
-
DNC in Denver
Complete coverage of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
-
The Crevasse
A five-part series that examines one tragic day on Mount Rainier.
-
Deadly denial
Sick nuclear workers applied for government compensation but most haven't seen a dime.
-
Final Salute
The Rocky followed Maj. Steve Beck as he took on the most difficult duty of his career.
-
'Colorado's burning'
Coverage of the state's worst wildfires.
-
Columbine shootings
Coverage of the April 20, 1999, shootings at Littleton's Columbine High School.
-
The Crossing
Colorado's deadliest traffic accident killed 20 children on Dec. 14, 1961.
-
Osveli's journey
Osveli Sales left Guatemala for a better life. Two months later, he came home in a box.
-
Wake for an Indian warrior
Oglala Sioux bestow a tribute to the first tribal fatality in Iraq.
April 23, 2008
2:13 p.m.
Suggest removal
ghostie writes:
Beats a giant blue stallion. Thank you to the Anschutz family for a great piece!
April 23, 2008
4:25 p.m.
Suggest removal
Scott writes:
Beautiful piece of artwork. Too bad Democrats In Action (DIA) doesn't have the same taste in art.
Scott
April 24, 2008
2:08 p.m.
Suggest removal
Spencer writes:
it was actually paid for by ripping off US WEST retirees