The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made

by Flora Miller Biddle

  I could feel a cold sore starting on my lower lip. I asked if that was his final decision.

  He said he’d make a pledge of ten thousand dollars, contingent on our raising the rest of the money.

  On our way out, he showed us some photographs of buildings he was proud to have built or renovated. They were impressive.

  In the outer office, the only decorations were colorful boxes of the cigarettes his company also made. Later, we wondered if they were more profitable than the buildings. We’d surely never ask him, not after hearing his reasons for turning us down.

  Leonard Lauder was a splendid trustee; the time spent with him was always extremely useful and also enjoyable. He made a generous pledge toward buying the properties next door. He told me how much he liked the quick action at the Whitney that often followed his suggestions, such as starting a drawing acquisitions committee, improving our retail products, and advertising exhibitions. Along with Larry Tisch and Frances Lewis, however, Leonard believed that there was not currently enough financial strength on the board to buy all the properties we needed and also to build. He did agree, though, that the Museum needed more space and suggested certain preliminary steps, such as raising money for more endowment to help resolve the deficit.

  Leonard, however, as early as 1978 expressed doubts about the wisdom of a large expansion. But he recognized our urgent need for more endowment.

  Several months later, in May, in an executive committee meeting, we had a heated discussion about buying the properties next door. It ended in a close vote, with Charles Simon, David Solinger, and my cousin, Sandra Payson, opposed on the basis of too high a price for not enough buildings. After much pleading from Tom, Joel, Steve Muller, and me, Charles gave in, saying, “Oh, all right, you can have my vote, go ahead.” Sandra then agreed. Both Joel and Steve called after the meeting to congratulate me on my leadership. I was becoming more confident about chairing meetings, and at times even more forceful.

  At the following trustees meeting, I noticed two extra tables attached to our oval granite one, added on to accommodate the large attendance. That so many trustees wanted to attend meetings also fed my new assurance.

  After much discussion, the board finally and unanimously adopted the long range planning committee report. This meant a resounding “go ahead” for our plans to expand.

  Bob Friedman, needing more time for his writing, became an honorary trustee. I believe he also felt alienated by the Museum’s increased size and decreased intimacy, as well as by the style of its new director. He expressed his feelings for the current state of the Museum in his biography of my grandmother.

  A collection, which really began in 1908 with the purchase of four paintings by The Eight, has grown to one containing over 6,000 works. … A staff of a dozen or so has grown to about 120. Annual attendance in the low thousands has grown to about half a million (including, now, that of a Downtown Branch). And openings such as biennials, once attended by a few hundred artists and their friends, are now art world events attracting as many as 3,500.

  Gertrude’s dream has become institutionalized, her shadow has lengthened — lengthened far beyond the walls of the museum which she founded. It now influences hundreds of newer museums, as well as patrons, collectors, and dealers. With mass media and mass marketing, everything about her dream has become enlarged, extrapolated, exaggerated, and, at times, caricatured. Partly because of Gertrude’s pioneering, art in general, American art in particular, has become chic. …

  Once, Juliana Force conferred intimately with Gertrude about comparatively small public relations matters or the details of a traveling exhibition. Now Thomas Newton Armstrong III, the fifth director of the museum, reports to 30 trustees. Five of Gertrude’s relatives, including her daughter Flora Whitney Miller, honorary chairperson, and granddaughter Flora Miller Irving, president, still represent the family — and, indeed, eight board members are women — but the board is dominated by bankers and business men. They all listen as Armstrong reviews the cost of sending an exhibition — fully insured and accompanied by a registrar — on a jet plane to England, France, Germany, and Japan. It will be expensive — perhaps $400,000. But attendance is growing. Interest in American art is growing. Corporate and foundation grants are growing. Financial support from federal, state, and city agencies is growing. And now support from foreign governments is also growing. Everything is growing.

  Yes, with growth, with the qualitative change that accompanies quantitative change, Gertrude’s museum has become democratized, popularized, even inflated, beyond her dream.

  Bob was right, but what was the alternative? Grow or go, they say. Looking back, I can see that we rushed into the new world with more haste and enthusiasm than were perhaps wise. Still, in the midst of the expansive spirit of that time, we felt caught in the excitement and certain of our role.

  After the trustees meeting, we served cocktails and played a game meant to educate our trustees about the Museum’s need for more space. The game began with a tour of the permanent collection, at that time on two floors, representing less than 2 percent of the whole collection. Curators, stationed at various key locations, pointed out spatial or artistic needs. Then back to the board room for a quiz. Those who stayed seemed to enjoy it, but most businessmen, as usual, left right after the business part of the meeting. Their lack of interest in our programs disappointed me, as I always found myself hoping that all trustees would care a lot.

  I measured the qualities of potential board candidates against Bob’s — his profound love of art, his business acumen, his commitment, his intelligence. I was disappointed if a trustee gave less of him or herself than Bob had.

  It was an unrealistic view.

  Trustees are responsible for ensuring the Museum’s financial stability while preserving its integrity. These days, everyone qualified to join the board doesn’t necessarily love art and artists. Everyone isn’t always there for the long term.

  What if Bob hadn’t resigned?

  Would the Whitney’s history have been different?

  Or if he’d succeeded me as president? Would the outcome have been the same, without the museum being torn apart?

  Eighteen

  Negotiations for the property acquisition proceeded quickly.

  By late summer, Joel succeeded in out-bluffing tough dealers and acquiring the properties.

  At the budget and operations committee meeting, Tom’s projected deficit of nearly $500,000 for the next fiscal year aroused strong displeasure — not only about the numbers, but about Tom’s daring to present such a figure. The deficit figure seemed to be another justification for the disapproval of those trustees already against Tom.

  The committee instructed him to reduce the deficit by one-half immediately and to produce a plan that would get rid of the other half. Tom and I could raise the money, I felt sure. Most of the deficit represented unfunded exhibitions, and corporations usually preferred to make commitments close to their current fiscal year. The idea of eliminating programs — the only apparent solution without cutting staff — was abhorrent. And canceling a scheduled exhibition would be disastrous, especially for a museum where living artists would consider such an act a betrayal of the Whitney’s principles. The Museum’s relationship with artists, dealers, and collectors was at stake. Tom was upset and angry, as was I.

  Walking home with several board members after the meeting, Joel assured me we needn’t make drastic program cuts. Knowing “an extravagant man is in charge” and that Palmer wasn’t strong enough to control Tom’s spending, the board, through the budget and operations committee, must. Otherwise, the Museum would go out of business.

  This kind of ultimatum was the only way to put the brakes on Tom, Howard said. I shouldn’t be discouraged. But I felt the condescension inherent in the apparent doubletalk: why hadn’t they told me that this was merely a ploy to intimidate Tom? That they didn’t really want to cut programs? As president, I should be aware of such games.

 
They did it because they didn’t trust me not to tell Tom.

  In the end, we raised more than half the money, mostly from new donors. We called them, we introduced ourselves, we made dates to see them, we talked about the Whitney’s vital importance to New York and to our country. This seemed easy, since we ourselves believed in our cause so strongly. And we discovered corporate leaders, foundation heads, and wealthy individuals who believed with us.

  That first year as president was a year of learning for me, and one of new and sometimes heady experiences.

  The Museum sponsored a trip to Paris for the Friends of the Whitney. We organized a variety of programs and art-oriented trips that both raised money for the Museum and also educated and entertained this important membership group. Tom couldn’t leave New York just then, and I was delighted to go along and represent the Museum’s leadership on the Friends’ first trip abroad.

  On June 28, after thirty-nine years at the Museum, Sylone Brown, our head guard, retired. He was an important symbol, one we were reluctant to part with. His retirement represented the end of an era. He’d been there with Gertrude, since the early years, and he exemplified the Whitney’s history with all it implied — Museum ups and downs, and Museum ideals of loyalty and continuity. Tom arranged a festive party for him with the whole staff and even a few trustees. A three-piece band played cheerful music, guests ate and drank, and an upbeat spirit prevailed.

  So much of my time was now spent working with the powerful people we were enlisting that, at that farewell for Brown, I was grateful for the chance to catch up with key, behind-the-scenes staff members whose role was so important to the functioning of the Museum.

  Ruth Schnitzer was one of those. For decades, Ruth nurtured Friends and Whitney Circle members, counseling them on every aspect of their lives, apprising directors, curators, and presidents of their moods and desires. On museum trips, she always made certain that everyone felt comfortable. “Ruthie,” Tom would erupt, “where on earth can we put this one at dinner tonight?” And she’d always know. Her tough but fair judgments were leavened with humor and kindness. She took us all into her big heart.

  Later, Jack and registrar Nancy McGary became ambassadors for the Museum as they installed our traveling exhibitions. Museum professionals all over the world responded to their skill. Nancy’s responsibility was to keep track of all works in the collection as they traveled across the world or the city, or just from floor to floor, ensuring their safety and condition, dealing with a staggering array of complex problems and people.

  Then there was engineer John Murray, self-assured, robust, confident of his important role, whose job was to keep all the building’s aging, complicated guts in good condition, including wiring, plumbing, and temperature control. Jack Martin and John go almost as far back for me as the Whitney itself.

  And Anita Duquette, for whom I had developed great respect and affection, was keeper not only of “Rights and Reproductions” (imagine the number of permissions sought each year!) but of the Whitney’s history. She knows more of that history than anyone. I’ve known her since she was a young woman with a long braid, watched her through marriage, pregnancy, and motherhood to her lovely maturity today.

  In a toast to Brown, Tom spoke of his emblematic meaning for the Whitney. Then Altamont Fairclough, the new chief guard, spoke movingly in his deep Jamaican voice and, with his radiant smile, presented a bronze plaque carved with an appreciative inscription from all the guards.

  “Monty” Fairclough was another remarkable Whitney person. After emigrating from Jamaica to London, where he worked for British Rail, he arrived in New York and came to the Museum shortly after the Breuer building opened. He worked his way up to the position of head guard based on his intelligence, hard work, invincible cheerfulness, a genuine pleasure in dealing with the public, and an intuitive, non-judgmental understanding of what the Museum is trying to do. His unerring common sense and his wonderful humor have often defused a tense situation or calmed a hostile patron. Few are aware, perhaps, that he and his staff of guards are the Whitney’s primary interfaces with our public, and one former coworker, Rob Ingraham, says, “Monty’s gentle, benevolent hand on the Museum’s day-to-day operations is as important to the Museum’s reputation as any exhibition, any curator, or any trustee.”

  I presented Sylone Brown with a check from the board. Mum, who had come with me, in her usual warm way spoke fine and touching words and handed him her own check. Best of all, for me, Marie Appleton was there. Now retired from her job at the front desk, where I’d had my first job working beside her in the Museum on Fifty-fourth Street, she looked just the same: erect and exquisite in her black dress, Calder pin, and snowy hair. She had worked at the Whitney for fifty years!

  This party rolled time back, reminding me of those who had died, or had gotten older — like Mum. I wanted to reassure her. My turn now, to nurture her — and also, to be on my own at the Whitney.

  Visiting Brendan Gill in his office at the New Yorker, or “The Word Factory,” as it was affectionately known, I noted that it was “marvelous, all piled up with books & magazines & ms. & photos & files with one cleared-off black leather sofa upon which we sat amid the literary clutter.” We discussed the new Library Fellows Brendan would head. This group would sponsor a distinguished series of books, collaborations between writers and artists, directed by elegant May Castleberry. Librarian par excellence, with quirky taste and humor, May manages the Whitney’s expertly catalogued and shelved library. In 1996 she organized a full floor exhibition of rare Western books, photographs, and prints. Her imagination roams freely in her selections of artists and writers who collaborate on the fine-art publications she creates for the Whitney. In the Magic-Magic book, an extraordinary magician, Ricky Jay, worked with May and six visual artists: Vija Celmins, Philip Taaffe, Jane Hammond, William Wegman, Glenn Ligon, and Justen Ladda. Who but May would ever have conceived such a project! It’s a kind of flip-book, revealing its mysteries as one manipulates it. Almost simultaneously, she did Mesa Verde, by writer Evan Connell and artist Robert Therrien, a beautiful book printed on parchment and boxed in linen. May, Brendan, Tom, and I organized the Library Fellows, a group of book lovers who, besides helping to support the publishing program, provide special treats at writers’ or scholars’ libraries, or in unusual spots, with surprising guests to entertain and delight us. Once, stately, beautiful Jamaica Kincaid read from her latest horticultural piece in Central Park’s lovely Conservatory Garden. A light rain was falling, but May had provided umbrellas for all, and we perched dry and enchanted on green benches amidst lilies and roses.

  Tom, Brendan, and I were also planning a national committee, to bring the Museum new friends and patrons who would spread news of the Whitney to the whole country, and whose dues would fund traveling exhibitions to small museums that could not otherwise afford to show them. This committee came into being in 1980, and Brendan was its first and most inspiring and beloved leader.

  In July 1978 my cousin Nancy Tuckerman, an old friend of Jacqueline Onassis since school days who had worked with her ever since she’d been in the White House, arranged for the three of us to have lunch. I hoped to persuade Jackie to become involved once again with the Whitney, since she had written me an encouraging letter saying how wonderful the Museum was these days, particularly in its appeal to young people.

  But Jackie got involved with the Met, instead.

  Day after day, such journal entries as these remind me of those days: “Wrote letters. Will never catch up.” “Overwhelmed by letters and phone calls.” “Signed hundreds of letters at Museum.” “Wrote letters again.”

  Some moments still reverberate with their original luminescence, such as the first time I met Jasper Johns, whose work I greatly admired. Tom had arranged lunch at Les Pleiades; I’d never met Jasper, and was timid at the thought of asking him for a favor at our first meeting. After preliminaries, finding Jasper friendly and unpretentious, I realized Tom was leaving the request up
to me. So I asked. Would he make a poster for the Whitney’s upcoming fiftieth anniversary of its founding, to disperse all around the city, on billboards, in subways, buses, everywhere we could manage to display it? A long silence. Had I offended him? But Jasper answered with great generosity, saying that he’d like to do it. I wanted to hug him. One bit of lunch talk: he said someone had referred to the “viciousness” of the art world. I asked, “Well, is it vicious?” He thought for a long time, looking inscrutable, then said, “Well, I don’t know. I don’t know any other world.” A perfect answer.

  On September 25, 1979, Jasper showed us his poster. One bright flag over another, letters stenciled in red, white, and yellow underneath, saying “1980 THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART.” It was just perfect. We were so overwhelmed that we didn’t even notice how painstaking Jasper had been in depicting those fifty years. One flag had forty-eight stars, representing the number of states in the union in 1930; the other had fifty, the right number for 1980.

  A few months later, Jasper gave me his first sketch for the poster. It’s one of my most precious possessions. It’s a wonderful, jaunty watercolor with all the strong elements of the final work, on a background of rich orange. I look at it almost daily. Somehow, it represents everything I valued most in those years. The reasons to care for the Museum, and its raison d’être. What it was all about, when you got past the relentless, dreadful money needs, meetings, talk, problems, manipulations, museum politics, pretense. Art and artists, the heart of it. That’s what I remember when I look at Jasper’s drawing. I also remember something Jasper once said about Tom, that he “always made things more fun.” One of Tom’s greatest attributes, it seems to me, and I was grateful that Jasper had recognized it, had articulated it.