page_title: Albright–Knox Art Gallery
section_title: Deaccessioning and the Albright-Knox's mission
hierarchical_section_title: Albright–Knox Art Gallery / Deaccessioning and the Albright-Knox's mission
caption_attribution_description: Statue of Artemis in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
context_page_description: The Albright–Knox Art Gallery is an art museum located at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. The Albright-Knox's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It is currently hosting exhibitions and events at Albright-Knox Northland, a project space located at 612 Northland Avenue in Buffalo’s Northland Corridor. The new Buffalo Albright Knox Gundlach Art Museum is expected to open in 2022.
  The gallery is a major showplace for modern art and contemporary art. It is located directly opposite Buffalo State College and the Burchfield Penney Art Center.
context_section_description: In 2007, the Albright–Knox Art Gallery deaccessioned a Roman-era bronze sculpture, Artemis and the Stag, that was auctioned at Sotheby's New York on June 7, 2007, and brought $28.6 million. This was the highest price ever paid at auction for an antiquity or a sculpture of any period, according to Sotheby's. It was purchased by the London dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi on behalf of a private European collector.
  The event brought national attention to what until then had been a local question, the mission of the Albright-Knox. In February 2007, when the list of works to be deaccessioned was made public, Albright-Knox Director Louis Grachos defined the ancient sculpture as falling outside the institution's historical "core mission" of "acquiring and exhibiting art of the present." This definition made public critics wonder whether the position at the Gallery of "William Hogarth's Lady's Last Stake or Sir Joshua Reynolds' Cupid as a Link Boy were secure. Works by Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, Jacques-Louis David and Eugène Delacroix had been purchased by the museum in earlier decades.
  The decision to deaccession certain art works was made by a vote of the museum's Board of Directors, was voted on and ratified by the entire membership, and followed the guidelines of the American Alliance of Museums. The sale raised questions about how museums can remain vital when they are situated in economically declining regions and have limited means for raising funds for operations and acquisitions.
caption: Artemis and the Stag, on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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