Aviva Lehmann, Heritage Auction’s senior vice president of American art, answers a question as she stands next to the Dallas paintings on Thursday, Oct. 17, which are among the many works in the art collection of the Boy Scouts of America — including several paintings by Norman Rockwell — which will be auctioned off this month to help compensate tens of thousands of people, mostly men, who were sexually abused while scouting. Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

DALLAS – In a Norman Rockwell painting, a family proudly welcomes a beaming Boy Scout home from camp, bag in hand. In another of Rockwell’s painfully idyllic works, a Cub Scout sits on a chair to measure the chest of his older brother, a Boy Scout who has taped his fitness sheet to his bedroom wall.

Many of the works in the Boy Scouts of America collection are as woven into American life as the organization itself, being featured on magazine covers and calendars and even used to sell war bonds. Next week, the works will begin to be auctioned off to help pay compensation owed to tens of thousands of people – mainly men – who were sexually abused while scouting.

The collection of more than 300 works, including dozens of Rockwells, is estimated to be worth nearly $60 million — a pittance compared to the organization’s multibillion-dollar bankruptcy plan. Campgrounds and other Scout property were also sold to help pay survivors.

“The idea that an iconic art collection that the Boy Scouts have amassed over many years is being liquidated to pay for the recovery of the survivors and to bring them some measure of justice I think is very significant,” said Barbara Houser, a retired bankruptcy judge who oversees the survivor settlement trust.

This year, the 114-year-old organization based in suburban Dallas announced it would rebrand as Scouting America, a change meant to signal the organization’s commitment to inclusivity. The group now welcomes girls as well as young men and gay leaders.

COMPENSATE THE SURVIVORS

Hoping to survive a wave of sexual abuse complaints, the Boy Scouts filed for bankruptcy in 2020. The $2.4 billion bankruptcy plan, among the largest and most complex in the country, allowed the organization to continue operating in while compensating survivors. It came into force last year.

Houser said more than 82,000 people filed during the bankruptcy process, and of those, more than 64,000 filled out a detailed questionnaire to state their claims. Survivors will be paid according to the severity of the abuse they suffered.

“Many of these survivors have waited decades, literally, for there to be some recognition of what happened to them,” Houser said.

There could be more distributions of funds to survivors as money becomes available and more litigation plays out, and how much each survivor gets will depend on how much money the trust collects, Houser said.

So far, nearly 6,000 survivors have chosen to receive one-time payments of $3,500, and various settlements are being established for other survivors, with some payments beginning for them.

In addition to selling art, contributors to the trust include insurers and local Boy Scout councils. As of last month, more than 30 council properties have been sold, Scouting America said.

The survivors

Tom Krumins had just begun having conversations with family and friends about the abuse during middle school at a camp in South Carolina when the bankruptcy was filed, and it took him months to decide whether to join the settlement.

“It’s the kind of courage and bravery that an Eagle Scout should show, but at the same time, it feels like you’re tearing a part of yourself away or losing yourself along the way,” Krumins said.

He said he was focusing on the Boy Scouts’ commitments to youth protection, which survivors had insisted be strengthened before voting in favor of the bankruptcy plan. The money will help, but the most important thing is to “make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said.

Doug Kennedy, a survivor and co-chairman of a committee representing victims in the bankruptcy case, said more than three-quarters of the plaintiffs approved the plan, but that watching the process through the courts was “agonizing” for survivors.

“The reality is for most survivors, all that solves is bankruptcy, it doesn’t solve their pain and it doesn’t solve what was taken from them,” he said.

WORK OF ART

The collection will be sold by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions in the coming years, including more than two dozen works that will go en masse on Friday.

The collection includes nearly 60 works by Rockwell, who worked for the organization’s magazine, Boys’ Life, early in his career and maintained a relationship with the Scouts — including creating images for their calendars — for more than half a century .

A work by JC Leyendecker depicting a Scout signaling with flags was painted in 1911, a year after the organization was founded. It appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post and was reproduced many times in research materials. His 1918 painting of a scout holding a sword in front of a representation of Lady Liberty draped in a flag and wielding a shield was adapted as a poster to sell World War I bonds.

“A lot of artists really got involved in kind of cementing the culture and the vision of the Boy Scouts,” said Aviva Lehmann, Heritage’s senior vice president for American art.

For the past four years, the works have been on display at the Ohio Medici Museum. Before that, some were on display at the National Scout Museum.

Copy the story link