Bathers with a Crab – Renoir

In a friendly but also serious wager, the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art are each putting an Impressionist work of art on the line for their favored Super Bowl team.

How lovely would it be not only to see the Packers win but also to have a nice little Renoir to gloat over, sent by the losing Pittsburgh-based museum to MAM.

“I’m confident that we will be enjoying the Renoir from the Carnegie Museum of Art very soon,” said MAM director Daniel T. Keegan in a statement that barely concealed his ardor for the dappled painting of lounging, fleshy females. “I look forward to displaying it where the public can enjoy it and be reminded of the superiority of the Green Bay Packers.”

Keegan, incidentally, is a Green Bay native.

Of course, should the Packers lose to the Steelers, MAM will have to pack up one of its very best artworks, “Boating on the Yerres” by Gustav Caillebotte, and send it off to the Carnegie. It is one of the finest examples of Impressionism in the permanent collection at MAM, a museum that is not rich on Impressionists in the first place.

[From Museums wager Impressionist art on their Super Bowl teams – JSOnline]

It’s that time of year, the frenzy, the colors, the joy …of the superbowl. this year it’s particularly exciting with two historical enemies sharing the field of battle. the Greenbay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers. the excitement has been running high since the championship doubleheader last week and has just been sweetened, in my opinion, by this latest public wager.

The museums have agreed to loan the paintings to the winning museum as a treat for the curators and the public. It isn’t the first bet of it’s kind, Last year New Orleans Art Museum and Indianapolis Art Museum had a similar bet and a Turner was regretfully handed over.

I love the fact that this is bringing the permanent collections of these museums into the minds of the public, it’s raising awareness for the arts and bringing it into the now and into an area where it doesn’t necessarily receive much coverage.

These comments in Press releases don’t count as trash talking apparently…

MAM and CMOA were quick to express interest in the bet once MAN suggested it on Sunday night. MAM director Daniel Keegan is a Green Bay native and I’m told he was particularly eager to fly the Packers flag. “I’m confident that we will be enjoying the Renoir from Carnegie Museum of Art very soon. I look forward to displaying it where the public can enjoy it and be reminded of the superiority of the Green Bay Packers,” Keegan said in a press release.

CMOA director Lynn Zelevansky shot back at Keegan, also in the kind of press release that art museums only issue when they’re having fun. “In Pittsburgh, we believe trash talk is bad form,” she said. “We let the excellence of our football team, and our collection, speak for itself. It will be my great pleasure to see the Caillebotte from the Milwaukee Art Museum hang in our galleries.”

[From We have a Super Bowl bet! | Tyler Green: Modern Art Notes | ARTINFO.com]

but we shall see as the countdown begins to game time next week.

So Remember, Go Renoir! I mean.. Go Packers! 😉