“The Rose at Brandeis"

From my review of “The Rose at Brandeis: Works from the Collection," an exhibition of works that Brandeis University leaders threatened to sell off in January:

The art remains extraordinary — if you can get past the feeling of being at a wake. The fireworks come mainly from 23 acquisitions the Rose’s first director, Sam Hunter, bought in the early 1960s with a $50,000 gift — art by Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Adolph Gottlieb, Morris Louis, Jim Dine, and Larry Rivers. Ellsworth Kelly’s 1962 "Blue White" focuses on the electric tension between a pair of kissing blue curves. Andy Warhol’s 1964 "Saturday Disaster" twice reproduces a newspaper photo of a bloody, fatal car wreck. Alex Katz’s 1962 "The Walk #2" is a portrait of his wife Ada in a violet coat standing against a blue-black background. These works rank among the finest their artists ever made. Additional donations brought a terrific slashing lyrical 1961 Willem de Kooning abstraction inspired by the tangerine sky and blue sea near his East Hampton home. Because of their market value and the apparently limited gift restrictions, these are the pieces that are most at risk of being sold.

Read the rest here.

If you want to learn about the Rose crisis, sample our extensive reporting beginning here.

“The Rose at Brandeis: Works from the Collection,” Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, 415 South St., Waltham, Oct. 29, 2009, to May 23, 2010.

Pictured: Gregory Crewdson, untitled, 2001.