Pittsfield, Mass.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art would not say how much it paid for Rockwell’s Shuffleton’s Barbershop, the piece at the center of a legal fight over the Berkshire Museum’s planned art sale.
The Lucas Museum said it plans to loan the painting to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., where it will be on display into 2020. Lucas Museum officials will then explore loaning the work to other museums to “maximize public access to this beloved work of art.”
“Norman Rockwell is one of our nation’s most important storytellers, and this cultural treasure will continue to be seen and enjoyed by the public in an American museum, where it will be a source of inspiration for generations to come,” Don Bacigalupi, founding president of the Lucas Museum, said in a statement.
The museum broke ground last month on its billion-dollar center dedicated to the art of visual storytelling. The museum is expected to open to the public in 2022.
Shuffleton’s Barbershop is among up to 40 pieces of work being sold by the Berkshire Museum, which said it would be forced to close without an influx of cash.
The museum announced Tuesday that another Rockwell piece, Blacksmith’s Boy-Heel and Toe, and 12 other works will be auctioned by Sotheby’s next month. Works by William Bouguereau, Alexander Calder and John La Farge also are going on the auction block.
The goal of the sale is to raise $55 million to bolster the museum’s endowment and fund renovations as it changes its mission away from art and more toward science and natural history.
But sale of the Rockwell works struck a nerve with many because the famed illustrator lived in nearby Stockbridge for 25 years and had given the works to the museum.
