The Trump administration has moved to fire federal employees who care for the more than 26,000 artworks and artifacts owned by the US government, potentially imperiling the collection, which contains pieces dating back to the 1800s.
According to the Washington Post, fine arts and historic preservation workers at the General Services Administration (GSA) said that at least five regional offices were closed last week and over half of the agency’s roughly three dozen workers were put on leave, to await termination. The staffing cuts are expected to negatively impact the diverse range of art on display in federal buildings across the US.
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The GSA collection includes murals, paintings, sculptures, and environmental artworks by artists ranging from Mark Rothko to Jacob Lawrence, from Maya Lin to Louise Nevelson.
ARTnews has contacted the General Services Administration for comment.
Staffers were reportedly made aware of the shuttering of their units in a memo signed by acting GSA administrator Stephen Ehikian. In an excerpt of the memo published by the Post, Ehikian said that the terminated divisions “no longer align” with the GSA and the Trump administration’s values. He also referenced the federal government-wide budget slashes led by Elon Musk.
“This email serves as notice that your organizational unit is being abolished along with all positions within the unit — including yours,” read the March 3 memo, which was signed by Ehikian.
Anonymous workers told the Post that they feared for artworks installed outdoors, including the 1974 Alexander Calder sculpture Flamingo at the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building in Chicago, as well as those undergoing conservation work at the time of the dismissals, among them Gifford Beal’s 1941 painting Tropical Country, which was temporarily removed from its place in the Interior Department building.
The GSA has commissioned more than 500 works for its properties since 1974 and maintains an active commissions program—with a dedicated 0.5 percent of construction costs dedicated to such project. But even prior to Trump’s cuts, it tasked a small staff with the stewardship of its 11 regions nationwide.
It is unclear if projects realized in the last administration will be proceed. GSA staff were reportedly instructed by direct superiors prior to their dismissal to quickly digitize their records into a shared drive. Several Trump-led initiatives launched in by first administration, like the National Garden of American Heroes, and a decree mandating a return to “classical” architecture have been reintroduced.
As noted by the Post, in recent weeks the GSA has expressed interest in selling around half of its art portfolio. On March 4, the agency published, then deleted, a list of federal properties and assets eligible for sale—the headquarters of the Justice Department, for example—to the confusion and alarm of its staffers. The administration has reportedly expressed interest in ending the lease on a storage facility in Northern Virginia that holds hundreds of paintings and sculptures, including pieces commissioned by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program that employed iconic American artists like Dorothea Lange and Edward Hopper to carry out public art projects. Government watchdogs have offered to buy works from the GSA collection, some of which have been spotted for sale on the online marketplace eBay.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has also moved to close 34 National Park Service offices across the country, including one of the five San Antonio missions that comprise the only UNESCO World Heritage site in Texas. Last month the White House fired 1,000 of the agency’s employees, compounding fears that the art and artifacts housed in NPS museums will also suffer from inadequate staff and facilities.
The NPS offices targeted support the operations of climate-controlled antiquities museums and storage in national parks, as well as visitor services, security, among more. Theresa Pierno, the president and chief executive of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), said in a statement that the administration’s budget slashes “are pushing our parks past the point of no return.”