Donor Forces Met To Cancel Sculpture Auction

“Acceding to a request from an angry donor, the Metropolitan Museum of Art [has] canceled plans to sell a large steel sculpture by the Spanish artist Eduardo Chillida – the only work in its collection by that artist… The sculpture was donated to the Met in 1986 by Frank Ribelin, a Dallas collector. Mr. Ribelin contacted The New York Times on Thursday to complain that the Met had never informed him of the planned sale and that he had learned of it only after a friend pointed it out to him at Sotheby’s Web site.”