After closing over the summer, the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University will reopen Monday with a security guard providing staffing and a former museum director returning as the curator, a university spokesman said.
Gregg Hertzlieb, who led the museum for several years, will return Monday in a part-time capacity, according to an email from university spokesman Michael Fenton. Hertzlieb’s role will be purely administrative.
The museum will be open from 1:30-5:30 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays, and 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It will be closed on weekends, Fenton said.
The museum will be closed on Nov. 23-Dec. 1 for Thanksgiving break, and will close for winter break on Dec. 14. The museum will reopen when classes resume in January 2025, with specific days and times to be determined, Fenton said.
The museum closed in June amidst the news that its director, Jonathan Canning, was one of the staff members whose job was cut at the time. It has garnered national attention after José Padilla, the university’s president, announced in February 2023 that three cornerstone pieces of artwork were being considered for sale to fund improvements for dorms for first-year students.
Richard Brauer, the museum’s namesake and founding director, has said he will have his name removed from the museum if the sale of the artwork, which recently was approved by a Porter County magistrate, goes forward.
He has called the move to sell the paintings by Padilla a “desperate action by a desperate man.”
Padilla first announced the possible sale of the artwork in February 2023, with plans to use the proceeds from the sale of Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Rust Red Hills,” Frederic E. Church’s “Mountain Landscape” and “The Silver Vale and the Golden Gate” by Childe Hassam, to fund dorm renovations for first-year students.
According to appraisals received by the university, the fair market value of the O’Keeffe is estimated at $10.5 million to $15 million; the Hassam, between $1 million and $3.5 million; and the Church at $1 million to $3 million.
The announcement drew widespread criticism from students, faculty, alumni and the art world, and drew nationwide attention.
The university removed the paintings from display in September 2023 citing security concerns and they have been stored in a secure, offsite location since then.
The university has yet to provide a timeline for the sale of the paintings, though officials have said they want the dorms for first-year students to be ready for occupancy in the fall of 2026. The dorms will include a gallery of lesser-known works from the Percy H. Sloan Trust, which directly purchased or provided funding for the three paintings being sold.
alavalley@chicagotribune.com
