Denver Art Museum reckons with past ties to illegal art dealers
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The Bunker Gallery section of the Denver Art Museum's Southeast Asian art galleries on Oct. 25. Photo: Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post
The Denver Art Museum is scouring its antiquities collection looking for looted goods tied to illegal art dealers and a former museum trustee who is the namesake of its Asian collection, officials said in a recent statement.
Why it matters: The authenticity of dozens of items held by the taxpayer-funded museum is now in question — part of a global reckoning about the provenance of art, propelled by demands from foreign countries and law enforcement to return looted goods to their owners.
What to know: At the center of an investigation is a woman known in court papers as "The Scholar'' from Colorado. The Denver Post recently revealed her to be Emma Bunker, a Denver Art Museum consultant, former board member and one of its top benefactors.
- Bunker, who died last year at age 90, worked with Douglas Latchford, one of the world's most notorious art smugglers, and helped legitimize his collection of artworks, many of which were pillaged from Cambodia's sacred temples and sold from Thailand.
- "Latchford used Denver as a laundromat to tell people that there must be no problem with the pieces because they've been in museums," Bradley Gordon, an attorney leading Cambodia's efforts to reclaim its plundered history, told the Post as part of its investigation.
Flashback: Last summer, the museum returned 22 objects illegally tied to Subhash Kapoor, a former New York gallery owner who was sentenced to prison in India. Officials also said they returned a "major piece" to Cambodia in 2016.
The latest: Museum officials recently removed a fundraising website named in Bunker's honor for Asian art acquisition, and announced last week it would use remaining funds to investigate the origin of the objects.
- The Bunker family donated more than 200 art objects to the museum over the years and approximately 50 antiquities, mostly from Asian countries, that are now the focus of the inquiry.
What they're saying: Andy Sinclair, a museum spokesperson, declined to answer questions Monday from Axios Denver about how the museum was duped and what next steps are being contemplated.
- Museum officials have defended their work with Bunker and said in a statement that her impact "is not a history that can or should be easily erased."
The other side: Bunker's daughter, Harriet, questioned the allegations, saying the supposed wrongdoing didn't reflect the woman she knew. "I don't know," she said. "Maybe my mom had this whole secret life we didn't know about."
What's next: The future of the Bunker Gallery at the museum remains in limbo, the museum said, as the collection is being reviewed by the board of trustees.