Playing Darts with a Rembrandt: Public and Private Rights in Cultural Treasures
Pointing out that if a wanton art collector wanted to play darts with his Rembrandt portrait, no one could stop him, Sax contends that conventional notions of ownership need to be modified for artistic treasures, important scientific objects, architecturally significant buildings and documents of cultural or historical import. Sax calls for a form of qualified--rather than exclusive--ownership of cultural treasures, founded on a recognition that the public at large has a stake in them. Wittily written with an eye for human foibles, this survey is chock full of illustrative incidents, such as the Rockefeller family's 1934 destruction of a mural they had commissioned from Communist painter Diego Rivera; the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls, monopolized for four decades by a small group of scholars until an intensive campaign opened them to the public in 1984; Jonas Salk's radical renovation of the La Jolla, Calif., research institute named after him--departing greatly from Louis Kahn's original 1965 design; the squabble over a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil discovered on a South Dakota ranch in 1990; and John Ruskin's torching of J.M.W. Turner's erotic sketchbook. Other cases include the Nixon papers and Lady Churchill's destruction of an unflattering portrait of Winston. In controversies over private papers (of President Harding, Kafka, Salinger, Malamud, Joyce, Martin Luther King Jr., etc.), Sax advocates public access, but--recognizing "the real costs that unmitigated probing of private matters can engender"--gives wide latitude to creators themselves, and some even to their heirs. He throws down a gauntlet to librarians, curators and archivists, however: material should either be closed to everyone for a reasonable period, or open to all adults. It's a stirring argument. Photos. (Aug.)Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.