Orioles owner David Rubenstein buys Kennedy Center sculpture after its removal

Orioles owner and billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein purchased the large outdoor sculpture titled “Blue” that was removed last week from the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., according to a person familiar with the sale.

Rubenstein bought the abstract blue sculpture, which resembles a stick figure in mid-kick, for more than $2 million, the person said via email, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sale. The New York Times first reported the acquisition.

The artwork, made by the late Joel Shapiro, was installed in 2019 at the Reach, the Kennedy Center’s $250 million expansion project that houses a campus and arts incubator, as a gift from the New York artist.

Now Rubenstein is in discussions to display “Blue” nearby at the Sculpture Garden of the National Gallery of Art, where he is the chairman of the board of trustees, said the person familiar with the purchase.

Rubenstein acquired the sculpture from the Joel Shapiro and Ellen Phelan Foundation, the person said. Ivy Shapiro, the artist’s daughter and president of the foundation, did not respond to a request for comment. The Kennedy Center also did not respond to a request for comment. The White House referred questions to the Kennedy Center.

Rubenstein, the 77-year-old Baltimore native, was previously the Kennedy Center’s board chairman until February 2025, when the Trump administration removed him and 18 other board members appointed by President Joe Biden in a sweeping upheaval, replacing them with Trump appointees.

Josef Palermo, former curator of visual arts and special programming at the Kennedy Center, told The New York Times earlier this month that the Trump administration had “targeted early on” Shapiro’s sculpture for removal. Palermo also wrote in The Atlantic in April that “the center’s president, Richard Grenell, told me to ‘get rid of everything’ in the permanent collection because we needed all new art for the reopening.”

Since his second term began in 2025, President Donald Trump has been determined to eliminate arts funding for what he deems to be “woke” programming, which has led major artists like Amy Sherald and Philip Glass to flee D.C. for Maryland venues like the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Lyric, respectively.

More recently, a federal judge ordered the Kennedy Center in June to remove Trump’s name from the institution’s facade after ruling that only Congress, not the Trump-backed Kennedy Center board, had the power to change its name.

Then, on Tuesday Lonnie G. Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian, said he would step down from the role after seven years. During his tenure, Bunch faced criticism from the Trump administration over how the Smithsonian depicts American history and values, including its emphasis on race.

In a video published by the Kennedy Center in 2019, Joel Shapiro described “Blue” as a work about movement.

“It’s about action and risk and performance and energy. It’s a celebration of possibility,” said Shapiro, who died in 2025.