We’d been naive about Alfred’s regard for the Whitney and his respect for us. Although he’d contributed generously to the purchase of Three Flags early in our relationship, and eventually made a verbal pledge of $1.5 million, Alfred left the board without giving to either of our campaigns.
There’s an old French proverb: “He who can lick, can bite.”
Among many who helped, Tom and I accepted a challenge from one we admired and liked a lot: Jean Riboud, chairman of Schlumberger. Although we’d only come to ask for his company’s sponsorship of an exhibition, we hoped in time he’d become a trustee. No corporate stereotype, Jean Riboud was a sophisticated, educated, and charming Frenchman. Over vintage red wine and perfect omelettes, surrounded by American paintings and sculptures in his office, he told us of his search during his first years in New York for its intellectual and cultural hub. “When I discovered the Museum of Modern Art,” he said, “I wanted to be there all the time, to see exhibitions, to meet people, hear the talk — to have a sense of what was happening. Twenty years ago, it was the vital core of your culture. The heart of all new and exciting ideas.” Now, he felt, that was no longer true. Could we take up the banner? Become the center for contemporary creativity, in New York, in the United States, even in the world? Then, and only then, would he support the Whitney.
Exhilarated, confident we were already on the way, we assured Jean he would be surprised by how soon we would ask to see him again. He laughed. When Jean agreed to have Schlumberger sponsor the Louise Nevelson exhibition, held at the Whitney in 1980, we felt triumphant.
On a trip to visit potential patrons in Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Louis, Tom and I were vastly impressed by Ed and Lindy Bergman and their commitment to the art they believed in. Ed, already a national committee member and a trustee, was another collector who had been ignored by the local museum until the Whitney recognized him. A founder of Chicago’s Institute of Contemporary Art, Ed was a successful businessman who had sold his company to American Can Co., headed by Bill Woodside, and then become chancellor of the University of Chicago. We reveled in the Bergmans’ fine Surrealist collection, in their carefully chosen Gorky, de Kooning, and Picasso drawings, in the exquisite boxes by Joseph Cornell poking out from walls, bookshelves, and drawers — even the floors were strewn with them! When we suggested a gift from their collection to the Whitney, they seemed open to this idea. Impelled by us, they were beginning to think about its ultimate home. But the subject implied, as always, finality — of the collection, of life.
Unlike many wealthy figures, Ed was open and warm. He never failed to ask about my family, my life. He was a wise and loving man, always ready to give his most honest advice about the Museum. I remember walking along Madison Avenue after lunch with him, following a drawing committee meeting at which we’d turned down a Gorky drawing as unworthy of the collection. Ed said, “Oh, that was the right decision. I have a much better one, would you like it?” How rare, such a spontaneous gesture of enthusiasm and generosity! When the Bergmans gave their collection to the Chicago Art Institute, we didn’t even resent their decision. It was the right one for people of such deep convictions and values, people as dedicated to their community as they were to their art.
Becoming aware of the boundaries of the art world, I wondered if museums couldn’t cooperate rather than always compete for the same people and the same art. With this goal, in December 1978, I invited the presidents and directors of the four major museums in Manhattan for lunch in my apartment. Everyone actually showed up. Blanchette Rockefeller and Dick Oldenburg of MoMA; Douglas Dillon, Bill Macomber, and Phillippe de Montebello from the Met; Peter Lawson-Johnson and Tom Messer from the Guggenheim; Tom and me. After a slightly stiff start, over poached red snapper and a little wine, everyone loosened up.
We were a pretty powerful bunch, remarked Tom Messer, and could wield tremendous clout if ever we decided to make a joint approach to an organization we had no hope of succeeding with as individual institutions. Corporate sponsorship was usually based on personal relationships, we agreed, and I suggested foundations. “Did you have a specific one in mind?” asked Messer. “The ones that have been shockingly uninterested in the visual arts,” said Blanchette, “are Ford and Rockefeller.” I was impressed by her candor. Tom Messer would, he said, consider a joint approach, perhaps to match challenge grants from the NEA, and would get back to us later.
I asked Douglas if the Met would be more active in the contemporary American field in their new 150,000-foot, five-level American wing. Only up to World War II, he said firmly — then added that they’d be doing more contemporary shows through their Department of Painting and Sculpture, so I wasn’t sure. (After lunch, Dick Oldenburg told me “Douglas was lying through his teeth, don’t listen to a word.”) Still, everyone seemed to think the meeting was a good idea, and Blanchette offered MoMA as host next time.
The next day the Met announced they had hired Bill Lieberman, a top curator at MoMA, to become head of their new contemporary art program.
We never heard from Tom Messer about foundation approaches.
And there was never another such meeting.
We were all, no doubt, too hungry for every dollar, too jealous of our connections, relationships, and “turfs” to have a genuine collaboration that might jeopardize any of that. The experience added a layer to my increasing disillusionment with the politics of museums. Although not as naive as I’d once been, I could still be deeply disappointed when things didn’t turn out as I thought they should, when those I’d trusted to perform feats of goodness and mercy turned out to be merely human.
One of our goals was to become more widely known across our country. Our first effort to have a national committee had fizzled after its first meeting in 1966, when Jacqueline Kennedy had been its first chair. Now, in 1979, Tom and I determined to revive it and to make it an integral part of the Museum. We wanted to invite collectors who were involved with the museums in their own communities, who would bond together and form a lively group committed to the Whitney. First, we had to get approval from the board.
Bob Friedman and Frances Lewis were concerned that the “by invitation only” process was elitist, versus the traditional Whitney policy that anyone who wanted could join in activities. When Frances mentioned, as an example, the Virginia Museum’s exclusive Collectors’ Club and its policy of “keeping people out,” we realized she was talking about anti-Semitism, at one time directed against the very generous Lewises themselves. Ed Bergman from Chicago and Barbara Millhouse from North Carolina, soon to become members of the national committee as well as trustees, told us they were against exclusivity for the wrong reasons, but felt a little elitism was necessary to attract people. And in no way were either of them elitist. The Whitney was special because it was open to a wide spectrum of people, and Leonard proposed the final decision: to make membership more open and flexible, we would have members themselves suggest other members.
Pleased with this “go-ahead,” we met right away with protocol official Grace Belt, a friend of Tom’s who represented the State Department in New York City, and asked her to help us. We wanted to have our first meeting as soon as possible, to set up a network of young, energetic, and involved people all across the country who loved the Whitney and American art. Charter members were invited by Tom or me, either in person or by telephone: K. K. and Douglas Auchincloss from Kingsville, Texas; Graham Gund of Boston; Carolyn and Roger Horchow from Dallas; Arlene and Robert Kogod of Washington, D.C.; Seymour Knox from Buffalo; Jane and Richard Lang of Seattle; Susan and Lewis Manilow of Chicago; Buddy Mayer of Chicago; Jane and Bob Meyerhoff of Baltimore; Susie and S. I. Morris of Houston; Emily and Joe Pulitzer of Saint Louis; and Ellen and Jim Walton of Pittsburgh.
Others joined a little later, and the first annual three-day meeting took place in May 1980, as part of our fiftieth anniversary celebration. Brendan Gill was instrumental in infusing the group with his buoyant spirit.
The format was typ
ical of many to come: Marylou and Sonny Whitney started things off with a bang, giving an elegant lunch at Le Cirque. After lunch came the business meeting, when members established a tradition of deciding on which special programs would be sponsored with their dues. Curators made presentations, and there was keen competition, since those programs not voted for probably wouldn’t happen. The first one approved by the national committee, “Art of the Thirties” from the permanent collection, was to travel around the country to smaller institutions that might not otherwise be able to afford such exhibitions. This program has since grown, reaching hundreds of small museums and university galleries and hundreds of thousands who enjoy these exhibitions. On Friday evening, a seated dinner-dance with artists, writers, and other art world guests. A Saturday seminar, followed by visits to special collections or places, and a variety of dinners in homes or studios. On Sunday, a special trip.
Tom had noticed Doris Palca, our dynamic head of publications, working in an engineer’s dark blue jumpsuit to keep her clothes from dirt and dust. “That’s cute,” he said to Doris, and immediately decided on a uniform for national committee Sundays. How many photos I have of picnics, excursions, boat rides, with us all in our Whitney jumpsuits, suitably accessorized!
That first Sunday, May 18, to give members a sense of the Museum’s history, we took the group to my grandmother’s studio for a picnic. Mum herself came and enjoyed talking with many members, including her old friend from Buffalo and Aiken, Seymour “Shorty” Knox, the great patron of the Albright-Knox Museum, and Joe Pulitzer, from Saint Louis, with whose uncle, Ralph, she had played in a regular poker game. All were fascinated by her memories of her mother’s dozens of birds wandering in the garden, or when artist Robert Chanler had sent Gertrude a kangaroo from Australia and she’d emptied out the pool for it. She described Howard Cushing doing the murals in the stairwell: “He painted that lovely lady, right up there, imagining her dark hair, almond-shaped eyes, and beautiful figure. He’d never seen her, but when he married, his wife was exactly the image of that lady!”
As usual, Mum enchanted everyone.
A beautiful day, a happy day. We were looking forward to our second meeting, to be held every year out of town. That same year, in October 1980, we met at Jane and Bob Meyerhoff’s farm near Baltimore. They were extraordinary hosts, arranging visits to museums and private collections, encouraging us to wander all over their farm, showing us their racehorses as well as their extraordinary art collection, and making us feel completely welcome. They put the seal of perfection on the whole idea. Ever since, host members have tried to live up to the standard they set.
Ed Hudson of Fort Worth ran the official business meeting in Baltimore, and enthusiasm was so high that members discussed increasing their yearly dues, then fifteen hundred dollars. After going back and forth about the right amount, Dick Lang said, Oh, for heavens’ sakes, let’s stop talking and just make it five thousand! And everyone agreed. Tom and I were flabbergasted, and would never, ourselves, have suggested such a drastic rise. But the group decided they wanted to have a real impact, by sponsoring traveling exhibitions and sometimes even programs at the Whitney itself. We were delighted they’d identified with the Museum and its needs so quickly.
Among many examples of the national committee’s munificent spirit, I recall a dinner in our apartment at the time of the national committee’s second meeting in New York. I’d invited Marylou and Sonny Whitney (Marylou has always been vice chairman, and a high-spirited, generous one she is), Tom and Bunty Armstrong, Laura Lee and Bob Woods from Los Angeles, Dathel and Tommy Coleman from New Orleans, Anne and Brendan Gill, Jerry Zipkin, who knew everything about everyone, Charlotte Curtis, on the editorial board of the Times, and new members Bebe and Crosby Kemper of Kansas City. Marylou exclaimed in wonder when she first glimpsed Crosby’s handsome six-foot seven-and-a-half-inch frame in our living room, “Why Crosby Kemper!! I haven’t seen you since I was selling war bonds in Kansas City in the forties! You haven’t changed a bit!” and flung her arms about his barely reachable neck. He turned pink with pleasure while his new wife Bebe looked astounded. Determined not to let the opportunity pass, Marylou plunged right on.
“Now you must meet my niece Flora, she’s the head of the Museum you know, and she needs lots of money, you must give her something extraordinary.”
Crosby said, a bit bewildered, “Of course, yes, what would you like? What does the Museum need?”
“Oh, how wonderful!” I said, madly stalling, with no idea of the extent of his fortune. Should I ask for a new typewriter for an office or a new building?
Crosby said, “Well, what shall it be?”
I took a deep breath. “We’ve been longing for a beautiful painting by Georgia O’Keeffe, one she’ll only sell to a museum.”
“Sounds lovely,” Crosby said. “How much would it cost?”
Another deep breath. “$250,000,” I said.
“Fine, it’s yours. I’ll bring you a check tomorrow.”
And he did! He handed it to me on the bus we were taking to Soho.
That’s the kind of fund-raiser Marylou is.
We planned a big party for the fiftieth anniversary of the Museum’s founding, which Gertrude had announced on January 6, 1930. It was to be on Gertrude’s birthday, January 9, 1980, in honor of all the artists in the Museum’s collection. Mayor Edward I. Koch proclaimed that week as “Whitney Museum of American Art Fiftieth Anniversary week in New York City.” On the cover of the brochure was Jasper Johns’s beautiful poster of the two flags, and inside, along with greetings from Governor Hugh L. Carey, the Mayor’s announcement, and a short introduction by my mother, was a list of the 944 artists represented in the permanent collection who were invited. And so many of them came! It was a joyous occasion. The evening party was nostalgic and fun, with big posters on the walls of my grandmother and her work, the Museum on Eighth Street, and Juliana Force. Paintings Gertrude had given the Museum when it opened in 1931 hung in the galleries. Fiona and I wore fringed brocade jackets my grandmother — her great-grandmother — had bought while on her honeymoon in Japan. They were a bit frayed, but evocative.
One of the artists present, Harry Sternberg, wrote this in a letter to Tom:
I had the good fortune to attend the first annual exhibition of the Whitney Museum when it opened on Eighth Street. It was a spectacular opening.
Juliana Force presided regally, the building was indeed beautiful, warm and friendly. Our paintings looked magnificent. And there was an unlimited flow of booze! By midnight the artists and the place had become a glorious shambles — sandwiches ground into the carpets, cigarette butts everywhere, even in the outstretched hands of some sculptures, and happily drunken artists passing out. Mrs. Force had two big strong men in livery standing by — and at a nod from her, these men began carrying drunks out of the Eighth Street entrance and stacking them on the sidewalk like cord wood.
It was a magnificent, never-to-be-forgotten opening. I only regale you with this account on the off chance that you were not present.
Bless Juliana Force, the Whitney Museum, and you.
The fiftieth birthday party was a joyful moment in the Whitney’s life.
In December 1979, Jack Baur, Mother, and I had a Christmas lunch at Les Pleiades. We felt at home in its cozy ambiance with big mural paintings of France on the walls, and a familiar menu: cold poached salmon or bass on the buffet table, perfect salade Niçoise, omelettes, and on Mondays fluffy cheese soufflé. Sotheby’s was still a block away on Madison, and Mum’s old friend, John Marion, renowned auctioneer, was at the next table with a client.
My mother and I loved and respected Jack, and were sorry to hear it when he began giving his negative views of Tom. “Trendy.” “Star-struck.” “Lacking artistic judgment.” Despite Jack’s criticisms, all made from a safe distance, we had a lovely time, Jack and Mum reminiscing about the good old days as people no longer deeply involved can do. As I do, today.
At Sotheby’
s, after lunch, John Marion sold a Persian manuscript Mum had inherited from her parents, who had inherited it from their parents, for the benefit of the Museum. Sitting on the edge of our chairs, willing more bids with all our energies, we were disappointed when it went for $44,000 instead of the $50,000 to $80,000 estimated price.
Still, it represented yet another generous gift to the Whitney from my mother.
A bit later, Mum made a major decision.
One fine spring day Everett Fahey, the erudite young director of the Frick Collection, invited me for lunch in his upstairs lair. Ceremoniously, he poured ancient sherry as we gazed out the French windows at his garden, where magnolias, daffodils, and blue pansies bloomed luxuriantly. Immediately enchanted by Everett’s openness and enthusiasm — and his good looks! — I relaxed happily on a tapestry-covered chair at a Renaissance table. After a bit of museum gossip, Everett said casually, “Your mother has, I think, a very beautiful Turner. Does she, or do you, have any idea of its worth?”
Of course, we didn’t. I guessed, vaguely, $250,000. He laughed and said that wasn’t even close. When I told him Mum lugged it back and forth between Westbury and New York in the back of her station wagon he was scandalized. “You should really have it appraised,” he said. “I imagine it’s worth several million.”
Discussions ensued, in the family, and with a few others. Passed down to her from her mother, who had inherited it from her husband, who had been left it by his uncle, Oliver Payne, Mum felt attached to it, but she finally decided to sell the painting — urged, I now know, by her lawyer, who realized how little cash she would have in her estate. She would give a substantial sum to the Museum, however, making, as Tom said, “the first, and most significant, gift … which launched this campaign for the future.”
The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made Page 37