On Wednesday, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) and Chuck Schumer (D-New York) sent an open letter to Ed Forst, administrator of the General Services Administration questioning the organization’s management of its Fine Arts Program and the Fine Arts Collection.
The GSA cares for over 26,000 artworks and artifacts owned by the US government, including murals, paintings, sculptures, and environmental artworks by artists from Mark Rothko and Louise Nevelson to Jacob Lawrence and Philip Guston.
In the letter, the senators note that the GSA has posted 46 buildings that have been identified for “accelerated disposal,” a process that expedites the sale of the properties, which are home to numerous artworks.
Of particular concern to the senators is the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, which contain several murals celebrating the Social Security Act of 1935, a landmark piece of New Deal legislation. Among them is a suite of murals by Ben Shahn titled The Meaning of Social Security, with three panels depicting the ills of society before the New Deal, followed by several panels illustrating an idealized New Deal vision. The building also contains a large mural by Guston, Reconstruction and Well-Being of the Family, as well as two by Seymour Fogel, Wealth of the Nation and The Security of the People.
As ARTnews reported in December, the building—a D.C. landmark on both the National Register of Historic Places and the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites—was put up for sale by the Trump administration as part of cost-cutting measures. The administration has also considered demolishing the building and selling the land.
“GSA is in the process of selling the building, but it has promised to obtain preservation covenants to ensure it can continue to maintain the murals after the Cohen Building’s sale. It is unclear, however, how GSA plans to continue oversight of the works once ownership changes hands entirely to private interests,” the senators write.
They go on to accuse the GSA of “mismanagement” of the artworks in their collection and call on the GSA to take “proactive measures” to protect the works.
“The Fine Arts Collection belongs to the American people, and it is imperative that GSA upholds its duty to preserve and protect these works for future generations,” they write.
To that end, the senators have a series of queries put out to the GSA to provide documentation, accounting, and explanations related to their management of the art collection, the proposed sale of the Cohen Building, and plans for the protection of the murals.
Last year, as part of an effort to slash government spending, the Trump administration severely downsized the GSA workforce.
