A couple of months ago we wrote about the IRS’ s ridiculous position on the estate tax value of this piece of art featuring an “illegal eagle.”
The case has been setlled – finally. A charitable contribution was made to the Museum of Modern Art where it joins others of its ilk. It spent the last few decades on loan at the Metropllitan Museum of Art.
Eric Gibson writes fo the Wall Street Journal:
“On Wednesday last week, New York’s Museum of Modern Art unveiled its most recent gift, and one of the most significant in its history: Robert Rauschenberg’s “Canyon” (1959). Rauschenberg was among the leading American artists of the post-World War II era, and “Canyon” is a “combine,” a kind of large-scale, three-dimensional collage that includes photographs, pieces of wood, a mirror, a pillow and a stuffed bald eagle.
The arrival of “Canyon” at MoMA is the culmination of a five-year absurdist farce—one tinged more by Kafka than Feydeau—that involved the IRS, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the heirs of art dealer Ileana Sonnabend. It might have been laughable, except that the stakes were so high. “
Read the rest of his article.
P.S. For you arty types – check out this blogpost and compare “Canyon” to Rembrant’s “Rape of Ganymede.”