Eight art works recently approved for inclusion in the Westport Public Arts Collection include, at left: “Sunday Stroll,” an etching by Philip Reisman. At right: “Carousel Scene,” a pen-and-ink and crayon illustration on paper by Tracy Sugarman.
Explaining the donation of eight new works to the Westport Public Arts Collection at last week’s Board of Education meeting are, from left, Ive Covaci, a co-chair of WestPAC; Town Curator Kathleen Bennewitz, and Anne Carpenter Boberski, WestPAC’s other co-chair. / Photo by Linda Conner Lambeck

By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — The school system has added eight original works of art to its collection, while decommissioning 47 others deemed to be reproductions.

Kathleen Bennewitz, the town’s art curator who works with the Westport Public Arts Collection Committee, or WestPAC, called the purge housekeeping brought about by a new database that allowed the committee to scour its collection more thoroughly.

The works in question, Bennewitz told the Board of Education last week, would not pass the rigor of the review process now used for art donations.

The school board, in separate 4-0 votes with one abstention, agreed to accept the new art works and decommission the others.

Board Chair Lee Goldstein, who is on the WestPAC committee, abstained from both votes.

WestPAC will celebrate its 60th anniversary next year, according to Bennewitz.

Many of its 1,600 works of art are displayed throughout Westport’s schools.

The eight new pieces, from four donors, include:

“The Sunday Funnies,” an acrylic work by Howard Munce, is another of the new donations added to the Westport Public Arts Collection.
  • A framed painting, titled “The Sunday Funnies,” by Howard Munce, a long-time Westport resident and supporter of the arts. The donation was made by his daughter, Mary Brewster.
  • Three pen-and-ink drawings by Tracy Sugarman, donated by Larry and Mary-Lou Weisman.
  • A photograph, titled “Crows Over Wheatfields: Homage to Van Gogh,” by Nina Bentley.
  • Three etchings by Philip Reisman — “Pershing Square,” “The Meeting” and “Sunday Stroll” — all donated by Jeff Mayer and Nancy Diamond.

Ive Covaci, a co-chair of WestPAC, said the committee makes sure the art is hung appropriately. The group also works with art teachers to achieve curriculum goals and school PTAs.

Each of the town’s schools has a dedicated wall for the art, said Anne Carpenter Boberski, WestPAC’s other co-chair.

Representative Town Meeting member Harris Falk, District 2, who spoke during public comment portion of the meeting, suggested a nice place to store the donated art, when not on the walls, would be in the new Long Lots Elementary School, once it it built.

 As for the decommissioned pieces, Bennewitz said, they include mass-produced posters and facsimiles, not original works. Some, she described as large. Some are Disney cartoons. Bennewitz said she wished they were originals and not reproductions.

 What will happen to them, Goldstein asked.

Bennewitz said some may be offered to teachers to keep, or donated to local shelters, the Westport Library or local real estate agents for use in staging houses for sale.

“We are not planning of disposing of them,” Bennewitz added.

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association. 

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