Through art alone are we able to emerge from ourselves, to know what another person sees of a universe which is not the same as our own and of which, without art, the landscapes would remain as unknown to us as those that may exist in the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists, worlds more different one from the other than those which revolve in infinite space, worlds which, centuries after the extinction of the fire from which their light first emanated, whether it is called Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us still each one its special radiance.
— Marcel Proust, Time Regained
I want to start this book with a recognition of what’s most important: art and artists.
I’m infinitely grateful for the joy I’ve received, through the Whitney Museum of American Art, from art and artists. Art remains, in the ancient biblical words, “when evening falls, and the busy world is hushed, and our work is done.” I can look at a Johns painting or a sculpture by Andrew Lord, I can read a poem by Mary Oliver, or listen to “Drumming” by Steve Reich, or watch Trisha Brown dancing, or Laurie Anderson performing — or just remember them. A thousand other artists of our time connect me to as many worlds of vision and emotion, unsettle my preconceptions, and enrich my life immeasurably. As George Steiner says, “The encounter with the aesthetic is, together with certain modes of religious and metaphysical experience, the most ‘ingressive,’ transformative summons available to human experiencing” (Real Presences, University of Chicago Press, 1989).
All contemporary art isn’t equal. For me, though, an open mind is essential. Who knows what wondrous, strange object might fly in? I often can’t see the new right away, and so don’t like making quick judgments. As one entices a wily trout with the right fly, so one teases out the meaning of a work of art — like the trout, it’s not always on the surface, one must explore the depths. In order to reap the reward, I must bring all I can of my mind and feelings to the search. Sometimes it’s easy, more often it takes a lot of time and effort, and sometimes it doesn’t happen at all. I’ve taken what I need, too, not necessarily what the artist intended.
A Greek temple silhouetted against an azure sky has revealed an ideal world. Michaelangelo’s Vatican ceiling has deepened my sense of humanity. Rubens has delighted me with his understanding of the love of men and women. In Picasso I’ve seen that we are fragmented, complex, but ultimately whole. Agnes Martin and Richard Tuttle, in different ways, have helped me to believe in happiness and innocence.
In my desire to embrace it all, I lack the discrimmination necessary for a curator, art historian, or critic — but I’m none of these. As a lover, I won’t apologize for my enthusiasm, or for ignoring art I don’t like.
The imposing granite Marcel Breuer building standing proudly at the corner of Madison Avenue and Seventy-fifth Street in New York City houses the Museum founded in 1930 by my remarkable grandmother, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.
One woman’s perception that American artists needed an institution of their own, her vision, her personal collection of work by contemporary American artists, and her indefatigable dedication created the Whitney Museum of American Art, one of New York City’s — and the world’s — major art institutions. Today, it is renowned both for its architecture and for what the Museum represents artistically.
Gertrude headed her Museum with Juliana Force, the director she chose, until she died in 1942. After her death, her daughter, Flora Whitney Miller, took the helm.
Then it passed to me. And today, my daughter Fiona, a fourth-generation Whitney woman, is an active board member of the Museum.
This is the story of that eminent institution, of my grandmother, of our family — all integral parts of my own memoir. And yet, this memoir does what all memoirs do; it tells only part of the story.
Don’t memoirs allow writers to keep from revealing all they know?