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Museums wager French impressionist paintings on Super Bowl XLV
Some folks paddling boats vs. naked ladies bathing – it doesn’t seem like a fair wager, at least not to this admittedly male reporter.
But that’s the bet, as the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh are putting impressionist artworks on the line for Super Bowl XLV.
If the Steelers win, Carnegie gets Gustave Caillebotte’s “Boating on the Yerres." If the Pack prevails, Milwaukee gets Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “Bathers with a Crab.”
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports the winning museum will be able to display its spoils for three months, so neither museum is in danger of permanently losing a multimillion-dollar French painting.
Adding to the fun is that the chiefs of both museums are engaging in a spirited spat of trash talk that may belie the image many of us have about museum directors.
Milwaukee Museum of Art director Daniel Keegan said in a statement to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that he is already preparing a space for the Renoir.
“I'm confident we will be enjoying the Renoir from the Carnegie Museum of Art very soon,” the Green Bay native told the paper. “I look forward to displaying it where the public can enjoy it and be reminded of the superiority of the Green Bay Packers.”
Lynn Zelevansky, the director at Carnegie, had a retort for her Cheesehead counterpart.
“In Pittsburgh, we believe trash talk is bad form,” Zelevansky said in a statement. “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 Museum of Art hang in our galleries.”
It’s unclear whether she realized the statement constitutes trash talk in sporting circles. It’s also unclear if Zelevansky is aware of the 2.5 points that Las Vegas is predicting Green Bay will win by.
ArtInfo.com reported that the wager will bring something new to each of the museums because the Milwaukee museum has no Renoir nudes (it has a Renoir river scene) and Carnegie, despite an impressive impressionist collection, has no Caillebotte.
Last year, in a similar bet, the Indianapolis Museum of Art had to lend the New Orleans Museum of Art a J.M.W. Turner painting, “The Fifth Plague of Egypt,” after the Saints whipped the Colts. Fittingly, the museum hung the Turner next to Claude Lorrain’s “Ideal View of Tivoli,” which it had wagered on a Saints win.
I don't w-want t-to be first. I g-g-get nervous.
Bathers with a crab? Thank God for modern medicine.
Nothing more exciting than museum directors engaging in trash talk... .
@tomcat: LMAO!
Heck with the Renoir....Go Packers! Go! Go! Go! "WHIP THAT SUPERBOWL"!!! 🙂
My knowledge of the arts consists of me loving my daughters fingerpainting on the fridg... . but I'm with Jeff, Go Packers... .now where's my cheesehead.
Cheeseheads are going to be made into cream cheese
BOTH TEAMS CAN KISS MY A$$!!!!!
F@*# the steelers i just hope green bay beats them because the steelers are garbage!
Steelers all the way!
I'm going for the Steelers; Green Bay can bite my lily-white Gouda.
I'm hoping the Green Bay Packers win in Memory of Grandma? Just think a Man lost his job because he wore a Green Bay Packers tie to work in Memory of his Grandma. Well you know what they say what goes around comes around. (or visa versa). Go Packers. To the Man that lost his job, you did the right thing. I understand you have new job. Good for you. Go Packers!
Superior huh isnt that what hitler thought of his nazi in the olmpics. Green bay packer superior. Yea for consipation! GO STEELERS TERRIBLE TOWEL THOSE FOOLS!
Anybody who compares people that belive thier sports team is superior to others as a nazi is a twit. That makes us a nation full of nazis. May the best team win, which would be the packers!
I miss the old days,can't beat those Oilers Packers romps... .
Ok Kim we get it. You're very in tune with human rights. We're talking football not exterminating jews. Try and relax a bit. I have no emotional investment in either team, but I'm excited for a good game. I do like Aaron Rogers though. He's greatly underrated.