Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
One painting stands out among the stately portraits, vast landscapes, and elaborate tableaux of figures in the Philadelphia Museum of Art<\/a>\u2019s early American art galleries.<\/p>\n And not just for its size.<\/p>\n In the 8-by-6.5-foot oil painting, a stern-looking man with fluffy gray hair stands next to an operating table. A crowded amphitheater watches him and a group of doctors operate on a boy\u2019s leg. The wound, their hands, and their scalpels are covered in bright red blood.<\/p>\n This is Philadelphia native Thomas Eakins\u2019 The Gross Clinic<\/a>, painted in 1875 and depicting Samuel D. Gross teaching surgery at Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University<\/a>. <\/p>\n The painting is currently owned jointly by the PMA and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), where Eakins studied. <\/p>\n But the story of the journey to that ownership is not a simple one. <\/p>\n In 2006, after 128 years of displaying the painting at Jefferson, the university sold it in a surprise deal. Local institutions had 45 days to match the price: $68 million.<\/p>\n PMA and PAFA started a public fundraiser, and Philadelphians took swift action \u2014 no one was going to take their painting away from them.<\/p>\n Twenty years ago, Philadelphia almost lost The Gross Clinic forever. Almost.<\/p>\n The slow burn of \u2018The Gross Clinic\u2019<\/p>\n Eakins was incredibly passionate about the medical profession. So much so that while studying at PAFA, he also enrolled in anatomy and dissection courses at Jefferson, where Gross was teaching. <\/p>\n \u201cHe was very obsessed with the accuracy of the body because as a painter, knowing the human body and depicting it is the highest skill level to attain,\u201d said Reisa Mukamal, a PMA museum guide.<\/p>\n In The Gross Clinic, Gross is operating on an adolescent boy with osteomyelitis, a bone infection that had previously been treated with amputation. The painting depicts the doctors performing a newer procedure for the disease involving removing the damaged bone tissue rather than cutting off the limb \u2014 a stunning medical advancement. <\/p>\n \u201cThe light is shining off Dr. Gross\u2019 head and it\u2019s almost like your eye goes there. It\u2019s a dark painting, and then your eye goes to his forehead, sort of symbolizing his intellect. \u2026 This is a live surgery, which was a brand new thing to paint,\u201d said Mukamal.<\/p>\n Eakins was excited to show off The Gross Clinic at the 1876 World\u2019s Fair in Fairmount<\/a> Park, which doubled as a Centennial celebration and exhibition. <\/p>\n Unfortunately for the young artist, it was perceived as too disturbing for the art jury<\/a>. The painting was moved to the fair\u2019s U.S. Army field hospital exhibition due to its medical nature. Jefferson alumni gifted it to the university two years later. <\/p>\n \u2018It belonged here\u2019<\/p>\n But 128 years after receiving that gift, Jefferson made a shocking announcement. On Nov. 11, 2006, university officials said The Gross Clinic was to be sold to a museum partnership between the National Gallery in Washington and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas, for $68 million.<\/p>\n The money from the sale would help finance an ambitious expansion plan for the medical school. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is a big undertaking, a transformational undertaking, and it requires a redirection of our assets,\u201d said Robert L. Barchi, Jefferson\u2019s president, in a November 2006 interview with The Inquirer\u2019s Stephan Salisbury. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not a museum. We\u2019re not in the business of art education,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n Jefferson\u2019s chairman of the board, Brian Harrison, said, \u201cOur first obligation as trustees of the university, if we are going to release an asset like this, is to maximize value.\u201d He acknowledged the \u201cimportance of the painting\u201d to Philadelphia and noted that \u201cthe [Jefferson] alumni revered\u201d it. <\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Thomas Eakins turned Philadelphia\u2019s medical history into high art. Philadelphians weren\u2019t ready for it.<\/a><\/p>\n Once the deal brokered by the auction house Christie\u2019s was struck, an additional clause was added to the agreement. It allowed Philadelphia to keep the painting if it could match the sale price. Jefferson gave the city 45 days to do so \u2014 a month and a half to raise the largest amount ever paid for a pre-World War II American painting up until that point. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no museum, in fact I can think of no nonprofit in the U.S., that can raise $68 million in 45 days,\u201d said Kathleen Foster, senior curator and director of the Center for American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t really time to twiddle our thumbs, we had to just dive in.\u201d<\/p>\n Anne d\u2019Harnoncourt, the director and CEO of PMA at the time, \u201cwas never ever dissuaded,\u201d Foster said. She started a fundraising campaign and immediately put the museum staff on phones calling government officials. She had them giving talks to the public, updating them on the campaign, and she suggested partnering with PAFA.<\/p>\n The museums met with bankers and coordinated to receive donations from Philadelphia-based philanthropists. The Annenberg Foundation, Gerry Lenfest, Pew Charitable Trusts, Nicholas and Athena Karabots, and Joe Neubauer all pledged donations in the millions, making up about a third of the funds raised.<\/p>\n Neubauer, formerly CEO of Aramark, has supported several institutions through his family foundation, including the Pew Research Center, Brandeis University, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Calder Gardens<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI like challenges. This seemed to me to be in the essence of Philadelphia,\u201d said Neubauer, who donated $3 million to the cause. \u201cAn artist, who was the greatest artist in Philadelphia in his period, this was his greatest piece that he had ever done. It\u2019s been in Philadelphia from the beginning. He lived in Philadelphia, worked in Philadelphia, went to art school in Philadelphia, went to Central High School. It belonged here and to take it out seemed to be just not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n A few Eakinses for an Eakins<\/p>\n Both the PMA and PAFA parted ways with several of Eakins\u2019 other paintings they owned via a process called deaccessioning \u2014 selling work from the collection and using those funds to keep The Gross Clinic.<\/p>\n Among Eakins\u2019 paintings that the PMA sold was one of a cowboy playing the banjo. Several Dakota landscape paintings went to a Western art collection in Denver. PAFA had to sell a more beloved Eakins piece, called The Cello Player, to a private collector.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was sort of a necessary tragedy. Because it\u2019s a private collector, they could come up with money fast, and the academy could get the money quickly,\u201d said Foster. \u201cFor the museum it was a happier ending because the paintings [it deaccessioned] went on view to the public. For the academy it was sadder because the painting has basically disappeared, gone underground.\u201d<\/p>\n As PMA and PAFA acquired big-name donors and sold beloved artwork, the story of the campaign reached the public. Civic outrage ensued.<\/p>\n \u2018Hopping mad\u2019 Philadelphians<\/p>\n Steven Conn, a history professor at Miami University of Ohio, was invited to discuss the matter on a local AM talk radio show, then known as The Big Talker, after he criticized<\/a> the sale of the painting on NPR.<\/p>\n \u201cI had expected to defend the idea that we should care at all about the sale of this painting and was caught off-guard when I realized that not only the host but several of the callers were hopping mad about it too,\u201d Conn wrote in the 2012 essay \u201cLocal Hero: The Gross Clinic and Our Sense of Civic Identity.\u201d<\/p>\n Kathleen Foster recalls that even Conn\u2019s taxi driver, who picked him up at the airport, became \u201cincensed\u201d when Conn brought up the possible sale of The Gross Clinic. The public was angry, and so were public officials. <\/p>\n \u201cI had to give this talk and in the front row, there was Ed Rendell leaning forward in his chair, drinking up every word I was saying. Who knows whether he had any idea who Thomas Eakins was before he got this pep talk,\u201d said Foster. <\/p>\n Rendell was governor of Pennsylvania at the time, and had previously served as the mayor of Philadelphia. <\/p>\n \u201cHe called up the director of the National Gallery and screamed at him,\u201d said Foster. \u201cHe just said, \u2018How dare you take this away from Pennsylvania? For shame!\u2019 I heard the director had to hold the phone away because he was being yelled at by the governor of Pennsylvania. That kind of energy I think is pride that this is a gem for our city and for the state.\u201d<\/p>\n But more important than how angry they were was how willing people were to donate. Before Reisa Mukamal was a PMA guide, she was living in Swarthmore<\/a>, raising four children and working as a synagogue teacher and writing tutor. When she heard about the campaign, she knew she had to donate.<\/p>\n \u201cI must\u2019ve read about it in the news,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t contribute a lot, it was a modest amount of money. But there was no way I was going pass that up and it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime story.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Why would we want to let a cherished piece of art leave the community?\u2019<\/p>\n Foster\u2019s favorite story is of a little boy who donated $2.46 (his piggy bank savings) to the cause after watching his grandfather become infuriated after hearing about the story on television. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s that kind of anecdote that just was so heartwarming that we just had Philadelphians at home in their living rooms listening to the television, maybe reading stuff from Stephan Salisbury in The Inquirer, and being outraged. We had this torrent of small gifts that were so adorable. Students, people with no money, and then there were the Annenbergs of the world giving a million dollars. We had this amazing spectrum of people.\u201d<\/p>\n In Salisbury\u2019s original coverage in The Inquirer, he reported that \u201ca woman in Wyoming sent in $25 because her daughter, who lives in Philadelphia, said she wanted a \u2018donation to this fund\u2019 as a Christmas present\u201d and \u201ca woman from Philadelphia sent in $100 and noted that she had taken her whole family to see The Gross Clinic over the Thanksgiving holiday.\u201d<\/p>\n Faculty members at PAFA started selling buttons at the foot of the Rocky steps for a dollar; they said \u201cKeep \u2018Gross\u2019 in Philadelphia.\u201d From time to time, they\u2019d bring their jar of dollars into the PMA to donate toward the fundraiser. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing to me that people hear about things in the news, whether they read it or watch it somewhere, and all of a sudden, $10, $15 dollars, $5, $1,\u201d said Neubauer. \u201cContributions now are much more easily made than writing a check and putting it in an envelope and putting a stamp on it. It caught the spirit of the people. Philadelphians are proud of their city, and this was a pride in the city. Why would we want to let a cherished piece of art leave the community?\u201d<\/p>\n The PMA<\/a> and PAFA<\/a> say the campaign received money from between 3,400 and 3,600 donors from across the nation. <\/p>\n \u201cI hope people appreciate that it\u2019s not contemporary art, it\u2019s 19th-century art. When I was younger I always marveled at cave drawings. Why did people draw in the caves? Because it was important to them to show what nature was,\u201d said Neubauer. <\/p>\n The PMA and PAFA raised enough money by the Dec. 26 deadline to keep The Gross Clinic at their institutions indefinitely.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s very important for people in Philadelphia to go see it and understand that it was done in Philadelphia by Philadelphians for Philadelphia,\u201d said Neubauer.<\/p>\n Supporters packed into the PMA\u2019s Great Stair Hall to cheer on this victory for the Philadelphia art world.<\/p>\n \u201cEd Rendell came to the microphone, put his arms up like Rocky, and just bellowed in triumph over the acquisition of this painting,\u201d said Foster. \u201cThis cheer goes up from the room, I thought the roof was going to lift. It was like we had won the Super Bowl<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Gross Clinic\u201d is currently on display in the Historic Landmark Building at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 118-128 N. Broad St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19102.<\/p>\n [Editor\u2019s note: Morgan Ritter is The Inquirer\u2019s first recipient of the Stephan Salisbury Internship for Arts Journalism. Salisbury died in 2024<\/a>, after a long career as an arts and culture reporter for The Inquirer \u2014 including his reporting on the proposed sale of \u201cThe Gross Clinic.\u201d If you\u2019d like to contribute toward funding the internship, please visit philadelphiainquirer.fundjournalism.org<\/a>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min One painting stands out among the stately portraits, vast landscapes, and elaborate tableaux…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134,433197],"class_list":["post-864330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-gross-clinic-eakins-jefferson-sale-fundraising"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}