The Maier Collection, R-MWC, and Lynchburg

Randolph–Macon Woman's College would never have existed if it were not for the generosity of the people and businesses of Lynchburg. The $100,000 to found the College in 1891 came from the pockets of 150 Lynchburg residents. The Rivermont Land Company donated 20 acres to William Waugh Smith's vision of a "college where our young women may obtain an education equal to that given in our best colleges for young men and under environments in harmony with the highest ideals of womanhood."

This close relationship between "Town and Gown" was strengthened even more in 1911 when Miss Louise Jordan Smith, the College's first art professor, began a program to bring an annual exhibition of art to the College for the cultural enrichment of students and the Lynchburg community. In 1920, a group of faculty, alumnae, students, and Lynchburg residents came together to help purchase George Wesley Bellows' "Men of the Docks" and organized themselves as the Randolph-Macon Art Association of Lynchburg to help assemble a permanent collection of art for the College. The Association was formed to "enrich the life of our whole community" by funding the annual exhibitions begun by Miss Smith and the purchase of fine art for the College's permanent collection – a collection that "would be open at all times to the Lynchburg public." Art from this collection was also loaned annually for two weeks to the Lynchburg public schools to help foster in the children of Lynchburg an appreciation of fine art.

Over the 100 years since the permanent collection officially began in 1907 with the senior class gift of a portrait of President William Waugh Smith by William Merritt Chase, the collection of art housed in the Maier Museum has become one of the finest college art collections of American art and a cultural treasure for the wider Lynchburg community.

Each year thousands of Lynchburg residents tour the Maier – in fact, in the past five years more than 7,000 Lynchburg public school students alone have toured the museum as part of an "Art and SOL" program. The loss of art from the Maier Museum affects the entire Lynchburg community – not just the students, faculty, and alumnae of R-MWC.

We believe that the sale of the art simply isn't necessary. The College has an endowment of $153 million (one of the largest endowments of a private college in Virginia) – money that was donated over the years to support the education of women in the liberal arts. The problems that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools identified – astronomical tuition discounting, operating deficits, and deferred maintenance – cannot be responsibly addressed by simply increasing the amount of money the College has to spend by selling irreplaceable educational assets.

We want Randolph-Macon Woman's College to remain a vital and meaningful part of the Lynchburg community – the community that helped found it more than a century ago. The charitable trust lawsuit before the Supreme Court of Virginia simply asks that the trustees of the College prove that – even though the College has a $153 million endowment that has grown in each of the last five years, a successfully completed $104 million capital campaign to "secure women's education for the 21st century" in 2006, and the regional examples of women's colleges like Sweet Briar and Hollins maintaining average tuition discount rates while growing their enrollment and improving student quality – it simply cannot make it as a woman's college before it uses all of the charitable assets donated for women's education for a different charitable purpose.

Regardless of your feelings about R-MWC, you can do something to help keep the art at the Maier Museum in Lynchburg. Two lawsuits have been filed to stop the unnecessary sale of R-MWC's art. One involves the protection of art purchased with funds from a trust established by Miss Smith upon her death in 1928. The other seeks to prevent the sale of four paintings, including "Men of the Docks," while important questions of donor intent and public trust are evaluated by the legal system in Virginia. On November 16, the Supreme Court of Virginia upheld a temporary injunction issued by the Lynchburg Circuit Court to prevent the sale of four paintings while related lawsuits proceed. The Court lowered the bond amount required to initiate the injunction by 90 percent to $1 million. The people of Lynchburg and the alumnae of R-MWC have until December 3rd to raise this full amount.

We need your help to raise this amount in such a short timeframe and pay for litigation costs in the two art lawsuits. Please send a donation to the Art Defense Fund today.

To donate, please send your check to:

Preserve Educational Choice, Inc.
P.O. Box 29612
Richmond, VA 23242

Please make the check payable to "Preserve Educational Choice, Inc." and write "Art Defense Fund" on the memo line. All donations to this fund are restricted to preserving the art, not the general restoration of Randolph-Macon Woman's College. You can also make a donation via PayPal by using the PayPal link below. All donations are fully tax-deductible to the amount allowed by law.

Fund:  Art Defense Fund General Fund

Additional Information:

Press Coverage of the Art Sale

Legal Pleadings to Prevent the Sale of Art

Legal Pleadings in the Louise Jordan Smith Trust Suit

Legal Pleadings in the Charitable Trust Suit