<p>Interesting take expressed by the Wall Street Journal raising several different issues. Given the current state of the art market, if a piece of work was donated after being appraised at $1million several years ago and the donor took as a charitable contribution-it same piece is now sold at a lesser value, the IRS can come back to the donor to adjust said charitable contribution write-off. As the museum staff will soon be gone and even if they were to remain, the University would and will need to contract art professionals to prepare the collection for auction or private sale, art handlers to package the art and prepare the catalogue of works and so on and so on. That is beyond the legal challenges that are or will be raised which can and will tie this up for years.
It is a very sad situation indeed. Curiously in all of this I wonder what else may be up for consideration as an asset to be sold-the Leonard Bernstein piano perhaps?</p>