Whitney Women and the Museum They Made

Many years after my mother’s death, some letters I found clarified the reasons for the Museum’s precarious financial state. I also understood why my mother found it so difficult to make the decision to expand the board.

My grandmother had left $2.5 million to the Whitney Museum, plus the forgiveness of all its outstanding debts to her, and a general instruction that “the remaining estate shall be devoted to such charitable and educational purposes, including the encouragement of art, as my children shall determine to be most worthy and deserving.”

Clearly, she had hoped that her children would give the remaining estate (upward of $3 million) to the Whitney Museum, but she was reluctant to chain them to her beloved project. According to all who knew her, this gesture typified her liberal spirit. She didn’t want to exert control from the grave.

In the end, the only one of her children who gave her share of the money to the Museum was my mother. Closest to Gertrude, devastated by her death, she wanted to do all in her power to memorialize her adored Mama. Flora pressed her brother, Sonny, who came up with relatively small sums from time to time, but gave the bulk to his personal interests, especially to provide for a wing of the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming. He somehow convinced himself that, since one of her biggest and best monuments, her statue of Buffalo Bill, stood right in the middle of Cody, the museum there was more suitable than the Whitney to give this money to, to memorialize her. This despite his knowing the Whitney had been central to his mother’s life and work. Was he jealous, perhaps, of his sister’s inheritance of the Museum? Of her closeness to their mother?

My aunt Barbara, Gertrude’s younger daughter, gave fifty thousand dollars to the building campaign in the ’60s, but, influenced by her manipulative husband George Headley, she used most of her share for a museum in Kentucky devoted to the “bibelots” he made.

Here’s an excerpt from a letter to her from lawyer and Museum trustee “Watt” Dunnington, written as the Museum was planning the move uptown from Eighth Street. With a few name changes, this letter could have been written at many other times throughout the Whitney’s history:

You have probably received Mr. More’s [Hermon More, the director after Juliana Force] letter of August 15th giving his report.

I am sorry he made any reference to the financial condition of the Museum because in the first place our income for the past fiscal year was abnormally high due to extra dividends, which we cannot reasonably expect in the future. In the second place, our expenses when we move to 54th Street will be greater and it is going to be hard to make both ends meet. Aside from this, if other people are of the opinion that the Museum is in a good financial condition it will make it all the more difficult to obtain gifts [from the family]. …

I am anxious to get the finances of the Museum entirely away from Mr. More as soon as we can diplomatically do it. I do not think he knows any more about that end of it than I do about art, which, as you know, is about all I can say.

Already, besides the financial crisis, a conflict reminiscent of that between church and state was surfacing — as it would many times over the next forty years. Trustees, with their fiduciary responsibility, versus directors, trying to fulfill the Museum’s mission.

By July 1954, when the Whitney was actually moving, Flora had given her share of the income from the trust to make the new building possible and would eventually give the principal as well. Watt Dunnington advised her to try again with Sonny, saying, “Turn the heat on him when you get to the Adirondacks.”

Mother probably didn’t. She disliked confrontations, and preferred asking him by letter. Sonny’s reply to Flora, after the Museum had moved to Fifty-fourth street:

My dear Flora,

At a meeting of Mama’s Trust last Tuesday, Barbara and I considered your letter to me about the Whitney Museum. We agree that we have a moral commitment as far as the extra costs of the glass ceiling and lighting for it are concerned, and we are prepared to pay the $110,804.54 involved.

We have some very heavy commitments of our own, including a $250,000 gift to the Buffalo Bill Museum at Cody, Wyoming. … this will attract millions of visitors to the Buffalo Bill statue.

In the autumn of 1959, drafting a letter to her brother and sister, Flora expressed her outrage. The cover page indicates that she wanted this letter summarizing the situation kept for the record:

Letter to Sonny & Barby autumn 1959 asking for $5,000 from Mama’s Trust for Museum

This is an appeal of two sorts. The monetary side of it is important as evincing an interest, as well as fulfilling an obligation that you either recognize or deny.

The Whitney Museum is a unique institution in that it is regarded by the public as a family Museum, and it is. (There are only one or two in the whole country and they are not primarily for American Art.) The formation of the “Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art” barely three years ago has shown us how many people prominent in the art collecting world are interested in the Museum, but it has also posed a few problems, one of them being that they will want representation on the board of trustees. They know it is a family affair but they also know that it is practically an inactive board. I feel very strongly that I would like to keep it a family affair for as long as possible. As a memorial to Mama it is something that her wisdom and foresight created when no one else was interested in the American artist, and most of the concepts that are incorporated in its charter are now recognized as fundamental in Museum organizations. It is in every sense her Museum. It seems to me it is a frightful shame that it is not supported by the family.

I know that it is impossible for you to come to openings, or to be involved in any of its activities, but it is not impossible to support it in other ways. There are approximately 160 Friends bringing in $40,000 a year, all the money (except a few thousand dollars) going for purchases. Our needs are also for general upkeep and hoping for a fund for better publications. I give varying amounts — about $17,000 this year when we started the Pension Fund. All I am asking for is $5,000 a year that I had hoped between you, Barbie, and the Trust you could give. With the $10,000 I have promised we can do very nicely.

Some time we hope to be able to divert some of the Friends’ money to other usages. More exhibitions — longer hours for the Museum to be open — but at present those things are not possible. The enormous increase in its activities since moving uptown has put a tremendous strain on the staff, but it is difficult to increase it much owing to insufficient funds. If we did more about our various rich Friends I think we would get money for some of these other needs but I am much against this at the present — being always hopeful that we will squeak through.

I hope you and Barbie will come to the opening of the Zorach show on Tuesday. As you know he is one of the outstanding sculptors of our day — & they are not very “modern!”

It is unlikely that her brother and sister came, even though they did give the money. “Got it, FWM,” appears in my mother’s hand at the top of the page. This trust contained the $3 million in Gertrude’s estate, to be spent by the three children for charitable purposes. Flora had already committed her share to the Whitney.

For the moment, the Museum remained a “family affair,” limping along financially, with an overburdened staff. That staff, however, was buying paintings, prints, sculpture, and drawings of variable quality — as always, with contemporary art — thanks to the Friends’ intellectual and monetary support. And a Museum’s permanent collection, after all, is its primary responsibility.

In 1959, the same year my mother wrote to her brother for money, the Friends’ Acquisitions Committee gave ten paintings and drawings, including James Brooks’s Rasalus, Stuart Davis’s Paris Bit, and Conrad Marca-Relli’s Junction — works only possible for the Museum to acquire through the Friends.

Besides these gifts, members and others individually gave important paintings that year, as they have in most years.

In the late ’50s and early ’60s, I began to know the leaders of the Friends. I liked them; their interest in and commitment to the Whitney impressed and moved me. Mostly, they formed a world of successful businessmen or wealthy individuals who had managed to keep their interest in art and ideas alive, while working hard toward personal success.

The Friends saw the Museum’s weakness in decision-making, in funding, in leadership. They wanted to help. And they wanted a voice in policy, in deciding how much money to raise and how to spend it; in determining whether our building was adequate and well situated for our mission; in examining the possibility of expansion.

Arthur Altschul, a partner in Goldman Sachs, had a family fortune of his own from his Lehman relations. He collected mainly French Nabis, American Pointillists, and “The Eight.” Since the Whitney’s collection was rooted in “The Eight,” the so-called Ashcan School of artists who had made “ugly” paintings, as critics at the time often called them — realistic scenes of daily life, not glamorous or sentimental — Arthur was drawn to the Whitney, although not to its more contemporary purchases. With his distinguished German ancestry and his respected business position, Arthur was a natural aristocrat. We remained good friends until the ’80s, when he became disenchanted with Tom Armstrong, the Whitney’s director, and with the Museum’s waning commitment to artists whose work he owned and loved. (Essentially a museum of contemporary art, the Whitney did exhibit those historically important artists, though not as often as before.)

B. H. Friedman was then an executive in his uncles’ construction firm, Uris Brothers. “Bob” was already writing the books and articles soon to become the center of his only profession. Close to artists and writers, he and his wife, Abby, became our friends as well as associates at the Museum.

Roy Neuberger, head of the investment firm of Neuberger and Berman, eventually gave his collection to the State University at Purchase, New York, where Governor Nelson Rockefeller named the museum for Roy. A small, intense, ambitious man, with a gimlet eye and a genial manner, Roy had strong views about art — and everything else, too.

David Solinger, once a painter, now a collector, was a lawyer heading the firm of Solinger and Gordon. Careful with words, eager to take the lead in deliberations and decisions, David was critical, opinionated, but dedicated to the Whitney, giving generously of his time and money. Along with the others, David’s voice was authoritative on the Friends’ acquisitions committee. One legend has him saying to Willem de Kooning, who was painting Door to the River, one of the Museum’s icons: “Put down your brush, Bill! It’s finished! It’s the Whitney’s!”

Alan Temple was a distinguished banker and an exceptionally thoughtful collector. Alan’s gentle voice and firm, wise way impressed others at meetings, especially those about budgetary matters. He became the Museum’s first treasurer.

But before any such major change could transpire, a behind-the-scenes controversy took place. Not everyone was in favor of adding nonfamily members to the board. My parents’ advisors were cautious, urging the family to keep control of the Museum.

Between 1959 and 1961, thirty years after the Museum’s founding, my mother still struggled with these conflicting points of view, bringing me, now, into the deliberations.

For some time I had felt, about the structure of the Museum, that our board of trustees should be larger. This idea was not at first agreed with by my colleagues on the staff, nor by our trustees; and I understood their reasons. We were in a fortunate position. Our trustees, all but one of whom were members of Mrs. Whitney’s family, had been associated with the Museum for many years. They had never tried to control the staff too much, as so many Museum trustees do. They had never failed to back us up. We couldn’t have had a better board. I must say that all of us, both trustees and staff, when we finally came around to the idea of enlarging the board, had many qualms; we felt that we might be giving up some of our independence. But it seemed to me we had to widen our support; I couldn’t see how we could continue to grow without doing so.

How I wish I’d asked Lloyd later if, indeed, he felt he’d given up some of that essential independence.

Watt Dunnington, shocked by the proposal, wrote his thoughts to my mother in May of 1960. She and my father were leaving to spend the summer in Gertrude’s Paris studio. Dunnington sent his letter to the Liberté, “so you and Cully will have a chance to think [my thoughts] over and you will not discuss them with anyone until your return next September.” He advised her to destroy his memoranda, “as I would not like to take any chance of their reaching the files of the Museum.” Opposed to the concept of nonfamily trustees, he suggested instead an operating committee, such as existed in most corporations, which would report to the board.

Then his condescension grew evident. “I believe such a committee would serve two functions: First, it would give Lloyd Goodrich recognition that he seems to want. Secondly, it would let the Friends and also Flora have an opportunity to discuss various projects concerning the Museum and art in general. I think it would serve to stimulate their interest.”

He intimated that Lloyd Goodrich was more “concerned with his position in the art world” than with the Museum’s future and should not be made a trustee. “Mrs. Whitney,” Dunnington continued, “in creating the Museum wanted its policies controlled by her and then she wanted you and her other children to control the policies and future of the Museum; consequently, she did not want to have a large number of trustees. I feel that Lloyd has to realize that we want a unique Whitney Museum rather than just a big Museum where there are lots of people, many of whom are not desirable. If the Museum ever gets away from the Whitney family its purposes will be defeated and you will never be able to restore them.”

Finally, he advised my mother to have a frank talk with me. He thought my interest should be encouraged, although I was “too easily influenced by Lloyd, Mr. Solinger, and the members of the Friends. I think they try to get at her believing she will be able to influence you.”

My parents’ trusted office manager, J. S. Mackey, wrote in a similar vein, “Surely a way can be found to appease the Friends of the Whitney without increasing the number of trustees, which seems such an unnecessary and dangerous proceeding.”

Both men offered valid arguments about the negative aspects of institutionalization. However, I sense underlying motives, including a desire to maintain their own control over family decisions and family fortunes. Probably, too, these ambitions were reinforced by anti-Semitism, glimpses of which I caught from time to time. My mother had no racial or ethnic intolerance. She accepted or rejected people as individuals. So it happened, at that time, that many collectors of contemporary American art found a warm welcome at the Whitney lacking at other museums and cultural institutions.

Reading these letters years later, I realize that, while I reject Watt’s prejudice, his predictions were accurate. The Museum could never again be the unique institution it had been — an institution with a tiny, family board, a board that trusted implicitly in its staff and shared its vision, a board that each year made up the deficit with no complaints, a board that never, never tried to influence programs. A board that thought it all great fun, as well as vitally important. But this board no longer had the capacity to fund this institution. And the institution could no longer survive without more money.

Although I found him insensitive and his thinking out-of-date, Watt Dunnington was right about one other thing: I had an influence in this key decision. And my mind was made up. The Museum needed these intelligent, committed men, already an intrinsic part of my enchantment with the new world I was entering, as trustees. These new friends were good. Good for the Whitney, good for me, too. They would revitalize the inactive board, they would ensure the Museum’s future.

My mother listened to my passionate advocacy, along with Jack’s and Lloyd’s reasoned opinions, and agreed that the Museum could become a truly public institution, as Gertrude had wished it to be, only by expanding the board.

Supported by the public, certainly — in proportion to its accessibility and accountability to that public.

In May 1961 the board approved a statement of thanks to be made on its behalf by my mother at the annual meeting of the Friends:

“The contribution which the Friends have made by their purchases to the Museum’s permanent collection has been of vital importance; without it the Museum could not possibly have done justice to the quality and variety of contemporary American Art. In all of their other activities, such as their loan exhibitions and their aid with publications, the Friends have strengthened the Museum’s program incalculably.”

At the next trustees meeting, on June 21, 1961, we chose nine “elective” trustees, meaning they had no say about the Museum’s quasi endowment, a distinction abolished in 1964. Besides those named above, in addition to the existing seven “permanent” trustees, three insiders joined the board: Lloyd Goodrich, Jack Baur, and my husband, Michael H. Irving, who during the Museum’s next move was to become associate architect of our next building. I was delighted that Mike was now on the board.

Roy Neuberger wrote to tell my mother about his pleasure. “As you know, I believe that the Whitney Museum has done more for the American artist since its founding than any other institution, and I will attempt to help work toward this end.”

And Bob Friedman wrote, “I am pleased to accept this honor, and look forward to participating actively in the work of the Museum. This work has, in the past, and will, I am sure, continue to be a great source of satisfaction to me.”

“How interesting that four of the five trustees you appointed are Jewish,” a reporter said to my mother.

“Really?” she replied. “We simply asked those members of the Friends who were the most interested and involved.” An honest answer. Mum just didn’t think as many others did — although she realized how unusual her attitude was for that time. Other cultural institutions had few, if any, Jews on their boards. Still, following its tradition of embracing new and sometimes controversial art, the Whitney remained open to new patrons from different worlds and backgrounds.

Trustees’ meetings were different now. We had agendas, we set dates, we tried to be more formal. Meetings were longer, more substantive, livelier. We talked more and more of expansion, of moving. In a letter I told my parents how I felt after such a discussion: “The meeting was fantastic — like watching a superb basketball team … they tossed the problem like a ball, back and forth, for about two hours, without stopping or ever interrupting each other, and came up at the end of it with this great idea.”

Assuming this brainstorming to be a technique used in business meetings, I was impressed by the level of participation and of ideas. Now that I’ve been to thousands of meetings, I realize how much time can be consumed in this way. I understand why directors and staff were sometimes irritated when their informed knowledge on a given subject was drowned out by trustees’ eager “off-the-top-of-my-head” chatter. In the beginning, however, the mutual respect between staff and board made such meetings quite productive.

As my mother chaired them, I could see how important this was to her. Shy yet engaging, she would greet each trustee, and recognize each raised hand. I once watched her speak at a fund-raising lunch, knowing how nervous she was while seeing how persuasive her words were.

When we were together, we talked much more about the Museum than anything else — more than about my siblings’ marriages or divorces, more than about my own children.

When Mum and I planned together, I felt the intimacy I’d missed as a child. I was happy. I believe she was, too. She had read Kipling to me, the Mowgli stories we both loved, and perhaps we were a bit like those jungle beasts confronted by a strange animal needing help to grow up. My mother and I drew together around this separate entity, as she had done with her mother. The Museum was the center of our relationship.

Like proud parents, we celebrated each new step, sharing the Museum’s joys and problems, unaware that one day it would grow so far from us.

Mum sat at the head of the table like a queen. Though she was neither distant nor autocratic, others, nonetheless, saw her as a regal presence. Gradually, too, they felt her warmth, they saw her enthusiasm. Through the veil of well-brought-up politeness, which bound me, too, she made each trustee feel her personal charm, the warmth of her approval. To each suggestion, to each gift, she responded with intensity. “Ooooh, David, how wonderful!” she would breathe, and you could see this formal, cautious lawyer begin to thaw. “Arthur, you didn’t, oh, that’s too marvelous!” and Arthur’s “successful businessman” mask would melt away.

I watched, critical, wishing she’d be brilliant, instead. Witty. Tough. At the time, I suppose I thought I could do better. Probably I was a little envious, too — everyone admired her so! I wrote to my parents, in Paris that summer: “The party at the Museum was quite terrific and full of celebrities — but so many people asked me where you were that I began to feel like a has-been, or isn’t-yet, or something! Really you were very missed and finally, in desperation, I began saying ‘I’m here instead!’ which startled people a little!” And I knew how hard it was for her, too. She didn’t want this public role. It was really painful for her. With immense effort, she would prepare for days, making notes on little pads of paper or on the agendas themselves, discussing the meetings with Jack and Lloyd, and planning with her maid what she would wear — which suit, which blouse, which hat.

She led the meetings — and the Museum — beautifully. A natural politician, she made the disparate group of trustees work together as one board.

Every so often, during meetings, Mum would glance at my father, who would smile reassuringly, then return to doodling on his pad, making sketches I wish we’d preserved. He caught the flavor of the discourse, capturing each of us with an affectionate, satirical, flowing line.

In 1962 my cousin, Barklie Henry, took the place of his mother Barbara Headley on the board. He was perhaps the biggest influence on my thinking about the Museum in those days. At the time, he was living in Washington, winding down his involvement with the CIA (for which he’d worked briefly), running a laundromat, driving racing cars, being interested in art, making films and music, writing.

Barklie had lived in our house on Long Island during the war, when we were both teenagers, while his mother was ill and his father was an officer in the Navy. He was my idol. He looked very much like our Vanderbilt ancestors, those who had made the family fortune, with his strong features and a big, slightly hooked nose. Funny, intelligent, and outspoken, he planned to become a doctor, and during summers home from Exeter he worked as an orderly in the operating room at the Glen Cove hospital. Arriving home in blood-spattered clothes with a burst of energy, he’d head right for the old Victrola in our living room and play jazz records at top pitch, much to my parents’ dismay. (He himself played bass fiddle; Whitney Balliett, now the distinguished jazz critic for the New Yorker, was his close friend.) “But Auntie Flora, these records are beautiful, and really valuable. Just listen for a few minutes, please?” But Bark could never really communicate his enthusiasm to such unwilling ears. His toeless, battered, bloodstained sneakers were another source of my parents’ irritation, but my father’s teasing only elicited Barklie’s hearty belly laugh, shaking his whole body, as they begged him at least to change them for dinner. All I wanted was to spend hours with Barklie, learning about life, especially sex, about which I felt he knew everything and I nothing. He, however, was understandably more attracted to my beautiful older sister, Pam, who had come back home with her baby while her husband was overseas in the army. He probably hoped to get much the same from her as I did from him. I was overjoyed when, replacing the Polish workers who had gone off to war, I went to work on my uncle’s farm plucking chickens. In the evenings, I could sit there all day and listen to Pam and Barklie’s jokes and conversations. Or drive with them in my aunt’s electric car to the movies in the village, a rare treat because of gas rationing. Or, best of all, ride behind Barklie on his powerful motorcycle — that was a thrill.

Close friends and associates in the ’60s, Barklie and I conferred regularly about the Museum. His life in a bigger world, his distance from the Museum and from my parents, had given him a perspective I didn’t have. All too aware of the insular world I’d come from, I was often unsure of my thoughts and capability. So I valued Bark’s advice and came to rely on it. Convinced our grandmother would have approved, he was all for broadening the board even more and for expanding the Museum.

In long, thoughtful letters after board meetings, he often criticized what he saw as weakness in my mother’s running of those meetings and her reluctance to accept what the new members were offering: not only money, but their ideas about organization, committees, responsibilities they were willing to undertake, leadership they were eager to provide. But there was no follow-through on those ideas and offers, Barklie worried, after these meetings. He had a vision of the Museum as wide as my grandmother’s original dream, and he felt it could only come about with more money from the new trustees — from still more trustees, in fact. I agreed. I had, after all, been a prime mover in the original decision to enlarge the board. But now I was learning its consequence: inexorable growth. Finding it good, finding it exciting, I failed to understand the necessary concomitant of that growth: an endless need for money.

Yet Barklie believed family leadership was crucial, and that I must be ready to provide it. That scared me! I wasn’t ready, either for the responsibility, or to leave home for the amount of time needed. And Barklie worried about his role. Considering his ambition to be an artist, he was reluctant to be part of an institution passing judgment on artists. Still, he felt he could find time in his life to “contribute something serious and honest in counterweight to what is so prevalent today around museums and galleries: pretense, fraud, social ambition, careerism.”

He thought our meetings were too “loose.” “This ‘looseness’ I speak of is a delicate matter. Naturally you want to preserve informality. On the other hand, I feel that the new members would respond to a more purposeful sort of atmosphere and would accept demands on their own time (and money) in some proportion to their feeling of momentum and purposefulness about the meetings. … It has most to do with your mother and the embarrassment and modesty she naturally feels as chairman of that high-powered a group.”

They all adored my mother. Revered her, really. Especially Bob Friedman. He likened her to a literary character he greatly admired, Proust’s Duchesse de Guermantes. Once, when they came in to a meeting together, Mother said with huge enthusiasm, “Oh Bob, I heard you last night on Long John Nebel, you were marvelous!” Bob said, horrified, “Oh Mrs. Miller, surely you weren’t listening! Were you shocked?” “Oh no,” said Mum, “I’m fascinated by all that, I always wondered what it would be like to take drugs, and you spoke so eloquently. …” Bob, looking abashed, explained to the other perplexed listeners that he’d taken part in an experimental program at Harvard with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert to explore the effects of hallucinogenic drugs on creativity, and had been interviewed about the experience on a popular all-night talk show. Mum often awoke and turned on her radio in the middle of the night; this time, she had happened to hear Bob. The use of hallucinogenic drugs was extremely controversial and unconventional, and Bob was flabbergasted that my mother not only accepted his experience but found it intriguing. Her response cemented their friendship forever.

And years later, my mother trusted Bob to write about her great heroine — her mother.

The new trustees, including Jack and Lloyd, wanted to make the decision to expand, to move. We were losing our identity to that of the Museum of Modern Art, they said. People weren’t sure where the one ended and the other began.

Moreover, our building wasn’t nearly big enough for the grand Museum they envisioned. They wanted more space for the collection, for performance, for lectures, for sculpture, for temporary exhibitions, for storage, for a library — the list went on and on.

Soon, even my mother became convinced. I already was. The fundraisers we consulted were dubious, looking at the fairly meager fortunes of board members, but they became more optimistic as we added other members. And despite their relatively small assets, those early trustees were incredibly generous. Bob in particular stretched his gift to the utmost, hoping to inspire those with larger means to give more. Mum’s “Oooohs” became more fervent, and with reason.

When Barklie and I couldn’t persuade Mum’s cousin Jock Whitney to join the board, Jock offered us a substitute: his right-hand man at J. H. Whitney & Company, Benno Schmidt, a powerful, determined Texan who undoubtedly did Jock’s bidding. Benno, a dynamo with a drawl, was used to having his own way. He respected my mother, was rather scornful of the rest of the board, and immediately undertook to raise our standards. He invited my parents, Mike and me, and Lloyd and Jack to dine with Laurance and Mary Rockefeller. We needed “clout,” he insisted, if we wanted to raise big money. Giving me an appraising look, he suggested a new dress, hinting that a more revealing one would help. I was seated next to Mr. Rockefeller, who immediately put me at my ease, and soon we were happily chatting — about what? Wilderness, travels, maybe art. It was a pleasant evening, and Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller quickly became Laurance and Mary to us. It must have been a success from their point of view, too, since Mary soon agreed to become a trustee, and stayed on the board until she retired in 1989, having contributed both time and money to the Whitney’s education programs. Over the years, the Rockefellers supported our expansion with both encouragement and money, although the Whitney never became their primary interest — how could it have? They were committed to conservation and education, to the YWCA, to social and environmental causes.

Many times, however, our family had difficulty enlisting friends and relations in a cause those friends just didn’t care about. They were often offended by the Whitney’s exhibitions, or at least didn’t understand them. Why should they give money, even if they liked us a lot?

I remember a lovely woman, my mother’s goddaughter, who helped us, in the ’80s, as chairman of a benefit “Flower Ball.” After its success, I hoped she’d become a trustee, but she said, “I wanted to do it for you, for your mother, and for Tom (Armstrong, the director at that time), but I can’t do any more. I just don’t get what’s on the walls.”

And a cousin, Michael Straight, once vice-chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, was deeply distressed at turning down our invitation to be a trustee, and said, “I can’t believe in what young artists are doing today.”

The Rockefellers were one of Benno’s gifts, but there were others, too. He entertained lavishly for the Whitney, bringing in donors to whom we had no access. Jock had received an equity-related security of Global Marine — an oilfield services company — worth a million dollars, which he turned over to the museum. His contribution put our $8 million campaign over the top.

Benno’s performance amazed my parents, Lloyd, Jack, Mike, and me, since we saw no evidence that he loved the art the Whitney showed. He was loyal to the family, because of Jock, and he certainly admired my mother. We were impressed, grateful, and a bit wary. Benno was our most powerful trustee, yet the nature of his commitment bewildered us.

What was he doing at the Museum? Surely loyalty to our cousin wasn’t enough? All the other trustees cared about contemporary American art, had collected it for years. Wondering about this, I woke slowly to new realities — about motives, about people.

Who else made us curious about their motives? Armand Erpf, recent president of the “Friends,” nicknamed the “Wizard of Wall Street,” a partner in Kuhn, Loeb and a highly educated, idiosyncratic man who loved art. His apartment and his upstate home and grounds in Arkville were filled with paintings and sculpture. Armand, reputed to be extremely right-wing, traveled in exalted intellectual circles. I remember once facetiously suggesting André Malraux as a speaker for a fund raising event; Armand snapped his fingers, said, “Yes, a great idea, I’ll go call him right away.” And he did! (Although Malraux didn’t come, Armand’s friendship with him pleased me to no end.)

Another time, at dinner at his house, I was seated between Armand and Jacob Javits, U.S. senator from New York, and heard their rather horrifying political discussion, with Armand stating unequivocally that Hitler had been one of the world’s greatest leaders.

My mother and Jack Baur put their heads together and concocted a persuasive letter from Mum to Jacqueline Kennedy, inviting her to join the board when Jack was president. She wasn’t on any other art museum board, and it would be a tremendous coup for the Whitney to have the First Lady with us — especially one so intellectual and popular, so identified with increasing America’s awareness of its culture. We were ecstatic when, in 1962, “Jackie” joined the board. What a statement about the significance of American art! What a validation of the Whitney’s goals and ambitions! She was quiet and supportive, looking lovely and perfectly turned out, smiling, and speaking softly, if at all. She usually sat next to my husband’s cousin, Harry du Pont, distinguished elderly scion of Winterthur, the magnificent house he had built in Delaware filled with his collection of American antiques, and advisor to the Kennedy White House on its collections. Although neither of these luminaries helped us financially, their presences were impressive and positive in other ways.

Knowing my daughter, Michelle, who was then at boarding school in New Hampshire, would be interested, I wrote her a short description. “Well, Jackie K. was very nice and friendly, and I hope we’ll get to know her better. We’re planning to ask her for lunch, and a private tour of the Museum, in a couple of weeks. She wore a very simple two piece white dress, and two beautiful turquoise and diamond pins, and her hair hadn’t been done too recently so she looked nice and natural, and acted that way too. She seemed tired, though — I wished I could ask her to the country with her children for a weekend of sledding and peace and quiet.”

Bob is tall and intense, very good-looking, and under a smart, sharp wit, genuinely kind. His conversation could dazzle and ignite a whole roomful of guests. Off we’d all go for a drink after meetings — vodka martinis were then the thing — and talk and talk about the Museum. Soon Bob and Abby invited us to their house in Turtle Bay for dinner with some of their friends, people I’d dreamed of meeting: Bob Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler, then married to each other, Philip Guston, Alfonso Ossorio.

What always engaged me about the Friedmans was how central art was to their lives. Even their bathrooms were filled with paintings by their friends. How eloquently they talked about art, with what passion and discrimination they acquired it. Bob had already published both fiction and nonfiction. Art and writing seemed to take precedence over everything else. They were at the center of a circle of creative people. We, however, lived far away, we weren’t really part of that world, and I knew it. Exciting as it was, like Jack Baur, I had other priorities.

When, in November 1962, we embarked on a campaign for a new building, my mother once again asked her brother to help:

Dear Sonny,

We have been through a very difficult year trying to find a way of letting the Museum of Modem Art acquire our Museum which they very much want and which we would be most willing to let them have if we could see our way clear to the purchase of other land. A very attractive and desirable piece of property has just become available on Madison Avenue and 75th Street. The price is $2,600,000. The Modern is offering us $1,600,000 for our building. We would have to raise about $4,500,000. The reasons for wishing to move are: First: When the Modern completes its vast building program we will be jammed into its complex and appear to be only its annex. Second: we need more space and if we add two floors by going up higher it will cost about $800,000 and we would have to raise another million to take care of the extra staff (and our now underpaid staff.) This project would not have much appeal in a fund raising drive.

Our new trustees are very much in favor of acquiring this land and they feel that with a well organized drive we could, in time, raise the money.

Last Friday two of our trustees told Lloyd Goodrich that they would give $100,000 each and they suggested we call a special meeting for Tuesday the 27th so as to inform the other trustees of the great advantage of getting this property, and of the need to organize a drive as soon as possible.

At this time I would hope that the family could show some solidarity, even if they are not willing to make a definite pledge. I know that you did a very fine thing in Cody, but New York was Mamma’s home, where she lived and worked all her life — and worked to encourage the artists of her time, just as she would be doing had she lived now — whether you, or I, like some of the art that is shown has really nothing to do with it.

The “Friends of the Whitney Museum,” (there are nearly 200 now) have shown their interest in many ways and we are quite sure that some of them will respond to this in a substantial way. But, as the children of the Founder of the only Museum devoted to American Art of this day, it would be a sad thing indeed if we could not give to perpetuate this vision of Mamma’s.

Dear Flora,

I have your nice long letter re plans for the Whitney. I’m truly sorry I cannot help you as I am full of admiration for the way you have worked on this and the splendid things you have accomplished. None of these things are easy and they take up a lot of time and energy.

On the whole we have had a wonderful year. …

A year or so later, Sonny wrote to my mother again, having heard she was ill and hoping “it is all over by now.” He continued: “We seem to be completely out of touch these days, tho why I do not know. Evidently we have some type of feud going, which would seem to me quite unnecessary, and which certainly has no current raison d’être that I know of. True, our paths don’t cross often, but is there any reason for coldness? Wish I knew. … I follow your plans for the new Whitney with wonder at your energy and ambition. …”