Terra Museum to close - Front Page - Terra Museum of American Art - board decision to close Chicago facility and place key works on loan

Ongoing turmoil at the Terra Foundation over the future of the Terra Museum of American Art in Chicago [see "Front Page," Apr. '01] has led to a decision by its board to place key works on long-term loan to the Art Institute of Chicago and close the Terra's Michigan Avenue facility in 2004. Precipitated by financial difficulties and low attendance at the museum, the move will free up the foundation's assets, estimated at $200 million, and allow it to expand its sponsorship of research and education programs geared toward the advancement of American art. The foundation will continue to support the Musee d'Art Americain in Giverny, France.

Trouble began at the museum in 2000, resulting in a lawsuit filed by former board members Dean Buntrock and Ronald Gidwitz in 2001. The pair accused Judith Terra, the widow of chemicals tycoon and museum founder Daniel Terra, of attempting to move the museum to Washington, D.C., for personal and political reasons, an allegation that was denied by board member and Monet scholar Paul Hayes Tucker. The accusation is also challenged by the fact that, before his death in 1996, Daniel Terra had explored alliances with various museums, including the Art Institute and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

A legal settlement of the case reached later in 2001 called for Judith Terra and the entire board to be replaced, ordered the foundation to stay in Illinois and mandated that the collection remain in Chicago; Terra is appealing this settlement on the basis that some board members approved the agreement under pressure from the state attorney general's office. The decision to close the museum and place the works with the Art Institute was made by the newly constituted board, which now includes art historians Wanda M. Corn, Kathleen Adair Foster and Neil Harris.

The Terra Museum has a strong collection of over 700 works by such artists as George Bellows, John Singleton Copley, Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hicks and Maurice Prendergast. Fifty of its most important paintings and all of its works on paper go to the Art Institute on a renewable 15-year loan; they will be integrated into the American art galleries on a rotating basis. The works on paper will be accessible for research purposes and will be used in changing exhibitions.

Until it closes in late 2004, the museum has planned a series of exhibitions called "Modern Matters." Highlights include shows featuring Stieglitz, Duchamp, George Bellows and Man Ray, as well as "A Transatlantic Avant-Garde, American Artists in Paris, 1918-1939" and "Chicago Modern, 1893 1948; Pursuit of the New." The foundation has yet to determine whether it will use the current museum building for foundation purposes, or sell it.

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