READING — The public auction of Albright College’s Freedman Gallery collection garnered nearly $1 million for the private liberal arts school in Reading as it tries to get on solid financial footing after years of deficits.
College officials didn’t expect to collect much from selling hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and pictures. In internal emails to faculty and staff, James Gaddy, Albright’s vice president of advancement, said the college initially estimated the auction would generate around $200,000.
Albright collected $995,000 from the sale, college spokesperson William Martinko said in an email.
“We were surprised by the hammer prices for the majority of the works — they exceeded expectations all around,” he told Spotlight PA in response to questions about the auction proceeds.
Gaddy told faculty and staff in an internal email Wednesday that the money will go to funding student scholarships and the art program. Some of it will also help pay for a “part-time gallery manager to help revitalize programming in the Freedman Gallery” so that art remains accessible and part of campus life.
More than 250 pieces were acquired by Reading Public Museum, which ensures the public will still have access to some of the Freedman collection, museum officials announced Thursday, a day after the auction was hosted online by Pook & Pook.
For months, Reading Public Museum was in talks with college administrators about which art it would acquire.
Museum Executive Director & CEO Geoffrey Fleming said the museum has a “very small pool of money to purchase works,” so it settled on pieces that enhance the local gallery’s existing collection and reflect “the Reading of today.”
“We are delighted with this result,” he said in a news release.
Fleming declined to say how much the museum spent acquiring the artwork, which includes pieces by Audrey Flack, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, and Salvador Corratge. Reading Public Museum also acquired work by Claes Oldenburg and Henry Moore, as well as pieces of local significance such as work by one of the museum’s founders, Christopher High Shearer.
Museum officials said they hope to exhibit the newly acquired artwork within the next year.
“This was a meaningful outcome for all involved,” Gaddy said in the museum news release. “We’re proud to have preserved important works for the community and kept them accessible to the public.”