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Art News
Feb 1976

[[image - painting]]
James Rosenquist, Silver Skies. Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Virginia.

Chrysler's first show at the museum displayed the glass collection, which Parke Bernet had valued at $500,000 and which is most notable for its Sandwich glass. As he had galleries hung, Chrysler staged a succession of openings. One of the headiest was the Impressionist show, in which the museum displayed such works as Pissarro's La Bonne, Cassatt's La Famille, Cézanne's Le Baigneur au Rocher, Courbet's The Foresters, Degas' Danseuse aux Bouquets and Monet's La Seine a Vernon.

There followed an exhibition of 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century French paintings, including Fragonard's Man with a Turban, and a show of Italian works by such artists as Titian and Tintoretto. In the winter of 1974, the museum presented "Tidewater Collects," a show of Chinese export porcelain collected by residents of the area. Last year, the museum exhibited "Washington-Custis-Lee Family Portraits from Washington and Lee University Collection" concurrently with its own "The Many Faces of George Washington," including likenesses by Charles Willson Peale and Gilbert Stuart. Also last year, the museum displayed 48 choice paintings it was given from the naive art collection of Colonel Edgar William Garbisch and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, Chrysler's sister. There is currently an Art Deco show.

Only once has a specific question been raised about the contents of the museum, and that involved some silver Chrysler purchased in an established Norfolk antique shop. There was no question about the value of the silver, only about its owner. After it was put on display, a trustee recognized it as stolen property. Chrysler says that not only was it returned to its rightful over via the police, but the dealer gave Chrysler his money back to conclude what was doubtlessly an innocent transaction.

Under Chrysler's stewardship, the museum has had an impressive schedule of concerts, film, tours for school children and lectures in addition to exhibitions. Predictably, the shows and the programs have drawn crowds - 150,000 last year, according to Chrysler - and received rave reviews.

Such attention pleases the individuals who were most responsible for bringing the art to Norfolk. They say that the museum has become a cultural boon, despite the controversy. 

"I think it was all worthwhile," Martin said. "I think it's going to be a great thing for the generations to come. I'm sure in the long run it's going to work out. I'm sure Mr. Chrysler is going to mellow a bit and realize there are other priorities in Norfolk besides the Chrysler Museums." Even Summers is laudatory: "We're now on the map - before we were just a mediocre little museum."

For Chrysler, the whole controversy boils down to mere gossip. "I am not interested in gossip," he said. "I most emphatically am not. My only intention is making the Chrysler Museum the most important museum that I am able to make it. And as such I don't want in it things that don't belong there....There is nothing in the 'Controversial Century' catalogue that is or ever was in the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk."

But if that is so, how does Chrysler explain the provenance listed in a Parke Bernet catalogue of a painting given an optimistic attribution in "The Controversial Century"? Sketch of a Young Girl was listed in Chrysler's catalogue as a Degas, purchased from Harry B. Yotnakparian in 1960 and formerly in the collection of Lucien Lefebure-Foiret in Paris. (A 1962 dispatch from Paris in The New York Times reported the only Lucien Lefebure-Foiret known to art dealers was a deliverer of paintings.) When sold for $1,800 at Parke Bernet on April 17, 1974, the painting was correctly identified as a work by Alfred Stevens. Besides the Lefebure-Foiret collection, Parke Bernet listed three others, the last one being the Norfolk Museum.

Chrysler says it is a mistake, that anyone can make a mistake, even Parke Bernet, which will not identify the painting's consignee but will say that it was not Chrysler. The painting was never in Norfolk, he says, refusing again to elaborate on "The Controversial Century" works. Instead of furnishing answers, he suggests one dwell not on this issue but on "the spirit of the man."

"I have devoted my entire life for the betterment of art, and it has not been a selfish gesture in any respect. The contributions that have been made - both financial and esthetic - have been enormous and shouldn't be passed over lightly."

Unfortunately, until Chrysler reveals the disposition of the remaining paintings in dispute the scandal's cloud will shadow him and his museum as persistently as he dodges the issue.

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