Washington Post Employees Get First Dibs in Corporate Collection Sell-Off

Edith Kuhnle, Untitled (Night River) (1989) Photo via Washington Post

As Graham Holdings prepares to exit the Washington Post offices after selling the company last year to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, observant employees have noticed the longstanding art collection beginning to vanish from the office walls piece by piece. But it turns out, they’ll have the opportunity to bring many of the works home, the paper reported.

The collection, which is heavy on local artists, but also features the work of renowned figures like Alex Katz, is being offered to Post employees for purchase at a discounted rate. All proceeds will be donated to TheDream.US, a scholarship fund for undocumented students.

“We wanted to do this as a farewell gesture to Post employees and to give corporate and newspaper employees an opportunity to own artworks they have enjoyed and loved,” said Rima Calderon, vice president for communications and external relations at Graham Holdings.

The collection is being sold as the company, which still owns Kaplan, Inc., Slate.com, and several other holdings, prepares to relocate to a significantly smaller office in Rosslyn, Virginia. Prized works will be relocated to the new space, while others, like a collection of photographs by Robert H. McNeill, will be donated to other institutions.

Calderon says that the collection reflects former Post publisher Katharine Graham’s longstanding support of Washington artists, many of whom she knew personally. She also said there has been strong interest from employees in purchasing the works that many of them already know so intimately.


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