Norman Rockwell paintings to be auctioned for Boys Scouts sexual abuse settlement fund
Over the span of six decades, the Irving-based Boy Scouts of America commissioned dozens of pieces from the artist Norman Rockwell.
This Friday, four of his paintings will be auctioned by Dallas' Heritage Auctions to raise money for the Boy Scouts' settlement fund, which is tasked with compensating survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
Opening bids for each of the paintings started at $100,000. Twenty-five artworks in total will be sold from the Boy Scouts' 321-piece art collection.
The Boy Scouts have been plagued for years by accusations of sexual abuse from former scouts. In 2020, mounting lawsuits and sex abuse claims led the organization to file for bankruptcy protection. Its bankruptcy plan included the establishment of a fund for survivors.
"The auction proceeds are only one component of the more than $2.5 billion in cash and insurance assets contributed to the Settlement Trust to ensure that survivors are equitably compensated for their injuries," a spokesperson for the Boy Scouts wrote in a statement.
The settlement trust is evaluating more than 64,000 sexual abuse claims, said trustee and retired judge Barbara J. Houser. She oversees the distribution of funds to survivors, which can range from $3,500 to $2.7 million, depending on the case.
"These Survivors have waited decades to be heard and acknowledged, and the sale of these works will aid us in providing a measure of justice to them," Houser said in an August statement.
The bankruptcy payout plan has been challenged in court by some survivors who want to sue local Boy Scout chapters and churches that ran programs where abuse occurred. Some of these groups were afforded protections from lawsuits if they donated to the bankruptcy settlement, Reuters reported.
Friday's auction is the first of several to come for the sale of the Boy Scouts' art collection, which will be presided over by Heritage Auctions.
The four Rockwell paintings on the block date back to the '50s and '60s. In "To Keep Myself Physically Strong", a junior scout measures the puffed-out chest of an older scout, presumably for a fitness test. In another, called "Homecoming", a scout holding a duffel bag is greeted warmly by his family upon his return
Aviva Lehmann, vice president and director of American art at Heritage Auctions, said the Rockwell art is a celebration of the Boy Scouts' mission of "raising young Americans to have social consciousness, to do good, to have civic duty."
"Millions of children have gone through and have had incredible experiences in the scouting community," she said, but added that "we have to right all the wrongs," in reference to the sex abuse scandal.
As the Boy Scouts continue to deal with the scandal, on the horizon is their 115th anniversary.
The milestone, which falls on Feb. 8, will usher in a new era where the organization will be officially known as Scouting America . The gender-neutral name change comes as the Boy Scouts have accepted girls into their ranks in recent years.
"In the next 100 years we want any youth in America to feel very, very welcome to come into our programs," the organization's chief executive officer, Roger Krone, told The Associated Press in May.
