In 1977, at the annual meeting of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Joel Ehrenkranz, chairman of the budget and operations committee, reported a surplus of $445,000 for the first nine months of the fiscal year. He attributed this money almost entirely to attendance at the exhibition “Calder’s Universe.” The eighteen trustees present at that May eighteenth meeting were pleased and impressed. Although I still felt the same about preferring free admission, the good news tempered my immediate view. Alexander Calder’s retrospective, during which, sadly, he died, was more than popular; it was critically acclaimed.
Tom reported on the 1976 addition to the staff of an associate curator for the permanent collection, Patterson Sims. Despite this welcome emphasis on the collection, the appointment had been controversial, since Patterson had no advanced degree and no museum training. His professional experience had been limited to working as assistant director of O. K. Harris, a commercial art gallery. Tom’s instinct was sound, however, in choosing a bright and articulate young man with a passion for art. Patterson learned quickly. He studied the collection, and used it in many fine exhibitions; he spoke widely and well about the Museum, its history, and its collection, and, reaching out to a wide audience, he made hundreds of new friends for the Whitney. Lithe, pale-skinned, with wide blue eyes, Patterson wore his tender orange-red beard like a flag. It lent him a maturity that belied his years: he was in his late twenties and bursting with the energy and idealism that are intrinsic to his personality. Intense, prone to strong emotions and loyalties, he soon became a close friend.
Patterson delved deep into whatever interested him, which was almost everything, and this was evident in his work. Besides his larger-scale exhibitions and the courses on aspects of American art that he taught at the Whitney, in 1980 he gave direction to the Museum’s plans for expansion in his series of one-artist “Concentrations” for the lobby gallery in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Whitney’s founding. These shows revealed the Museum’s commitment to certain artists it had collected in depth over the years — Charles Burchfield, Alexander Calder, Maurice Prendergast, John Sloan, Ad Reinhardt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Stuart Davis, and Charles Sheeler — thus emphasizing through the Whitney’s strengths its character and history.
John Sloan, for example, had his first one-man show at the Whitney Studio in 1916. Afterward, he wrote to thank my grandmother: “Due to the prestige which my exhibition at 8 W. 8 established … I have passed through the most successful winter of my career. … Mr. Kraushaar is to handle my etchings and paintings as well — his attention was quite surely attracted to my work by my Whitney Show.”
A charter member of the Whitney Studio Club, founded by Gertrude in 1918, Sloan exhibited in almost all its group shows. He had a one-man show of etchings in 1931, the year the Whitney Museum opened, and continued to show there regularly all his life. In 1952, a large retrospective of his work, organized by Lloyd Goodrich, opened at the Whitney. As Patterson wrote, the 1980 show “charts a relationship between Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the Whitney Museum, and John Sloan and his work which has flourished vigorously for sixty-five years.”
One could trace the same commitment with the other artists shown in this series. Charles Sheeler and his wife, for example, lived for several years in rooms on the third and fourth floors above the Whitney Studio Club’s galleries at 10 West Eighth Street. Besides the professional relationship, in those days there was almost always a personal one as well.
At that same 1977 trustees meeting, Tom also reported progress toward another goal: the number and quality of acquisitions gained in the past year had been the greatest in the history of the Museum. He’d accomplished this without using the Museum’s budget, but by raising money from new sources.
Then Howard Lipman announced his last meeting as president. He went on to say how pleased he was by the Museum’s progress in implementing the report of the planning committee — the expanded membership, the strengthened board, the regularly exhibited permanent collection. He proposed a resolution to especially thank Barklie, now retiring from the board, for his contributions to the Whitney. (Barklie was about to move to the West Coast.)
Finally, Howard gave the nominating committee report, proposing my mother as honorary chairman, himself as chairman, David Solinger as honorary president, and me as president. Joel Ehrenkranz, head of budget and operations, a lawyer and collector who would become president of the Museum in the late ’90s, and Daniel Childs, a member of the finance committee, would become vice presidents, protecting the Museum in my weakest area, the financial.
The slate was accepted.
Moving to the head of the oval granite table, I felt, flooding me, simultaneous sensations of anxiety and joy. For a moment, I could hardly speak. Would I be able to do it? Would anyone listen? Would the board recognize my fears and frailties? Such a public role was unfamiliar, awesome. But no — I would not be fearful. I would conquer my insecurity and fulfill the role I had accepted. Besides, look at the splendid attendance — nearly all the trustees had come to welcome me. They were my friends, coworkers for the Whitney’s illustrious future.
I didn’t waste a minute, but got right down to business, restating the Museum’s long-term goals: more space for the permanent collection, for offices, and for an auditorium. To accomplish this, I emphasized that a great deal of money for building and endowment was necessary, and proposed the beginning of a major fund drive to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Museum in 1980.
At least $100,000 more must be given by the board annually, I said — knowing it would be my job to ask for it. After all, an additional $250,000 was necessary to keep the budget in balance.
After inviting all trustees to attend meetings of the executive committee, so it wouldn’t become a kind of insiders’ clique, I concluded my opening speech: “I care very deeply for this Museum. It’s a part of my history, as well as our country’s, and I promise you all to work hard and to do all in my power to fulfill its promise.” How fervently I meant this, only I knew.
That evening, the Museum held a party to celebrate the past presidents of the Whitney: my grandmother, my mother, David, and Howard. Mum, raising her glass, made a wonderful toast:
“There is only one good thing I did. I don’t know if any of you knew this and I might not say it if I hadn’t had such a good time and such good … [nodding at her friends and family]. My mother left the Museum to me and said that if I didn’t want to keep it as a museum I could — sell everything. Obviously I wanted to keep it. And I just want to say that I can imagine how happy my mother would be to know that her grandchild had become president thirty-five years after she died.”
Tom revered my mother. For Tom, Mum was everything a lady should be — charming, elegant, warm, and faithful. Moreover, he and everyone knew that the Whitney had survived only thanks to her. Since Gertrude’s death, my mother had kept it going, sacrificing time and lots of her remaining fortune, then making the Whitney a public institution, so it could continue to grow and flourish. It had been a heroic act. And Tom adored my mother, her style: her husky voice, her slightly flirtatious but dignified manner, her polished nails, her black evening suit covered with shiny paillettes. When, during an opening party, he arranged for a ’20s-style chanteuse to sing torch songs in the Whitney’s big elevator, he’d had my mother in mind, and indeed she loved it. The most special favor he could offer potential patrons was a visit to Flora in Long Island. She represented the Whitney as no one else could — certainly not much-more-casual I, who would sometimes appear for meetings with Tom in my running shoes, because I’d just jogged around the lake in Central Park for exercise; whose nails had never seen polish, because I didn’t take the time for that; who argued with him, who was all too serious, who was always trying to reduce expenses — the Museum’s as well as my own.
Still, Tom and I were getting along pretty well.
We met at least once a week, talked on the phone almost daily. We examined endless lists, searching for additions to the board or to committees. We planned dozens of meetings and parties. I personally took care of most trustee and committee affairs, making sure to meet with members at least twice a year for breakfast or lunch, calling them with relevant news, giving or arranging dinners where they could meet each other and new members, too. I wrote hundreds of letters, thanking, asking, informing — trying a little desperately to do whatever it took to keep us a “family.” Tom promised to keep me posted on everything to do with the Museum, so there would be no further surprises like Marcia. I, in turn, agreed not to interfere with decisions in his bailiwick and to protect him, as best I could, from trustee interference by acting as a buffer, or, when necessary, a mediator. We wooed new members together, most of them from Tom’s lists of people he’d met or had heard of from those in the art world. Both of us always met with potential new trustees.
I was now spending at least five days a week in New York, and sometimes weekends as well — there was that much work to do. My mother’s Sixty-sixth Street carriage house, ten blocks from the Whitney — an easy walk or run — was my headquarters. With new desks in the spare bedroom, with a part-time assistant on the Museum’s payroll, I would arise early, have an English muffin and a cup of coffee, and dress in a big hurry before the arrival of John Ellis, my indispensable helper. Still in his twenties, he had graduated with honors from Williams College. He wanted to act and to write. Although I had always written my own letters, and for the most part continued to do so, John now typed them. Pretty soon, he learned to write many that sounded like me, only better. He made phone calls, scheduled appointments, and quickly caught on to who was who. Organizing my life was much easier with John to help. As the years passed we moved to a room in a building on Sixty-ninth street, and finally to two different offices in Museum-owned brownstones on Madison Avenue.
Charlie Simon gave the Museum a generous gift so I could entertain. Inviting guests, both to restaurants and to my home, while expensive, was essential if we were to increase the Museum’s income by finding new patrons. It was typically sensitive of him also to recognize my financial limitations. Moreover, he gave me excellent advice during our lunches at “21,” where I still remember the “Sunset Salad” as we discussed the fund drive for endowment and an expanded Whitney. It seemed like his club. He had the best table, the full attention of the owners, and constant greetings.
“You can’t do it,” said Charlie bluntly, referring to expanding the Museum.
“Why not?” I asked. “I believe in it. I have confidence in our board — it’s enthusiastic about the project, and there’s lots of money there — and I’ll work hard —”
“Bullshit,” Charlie exploded. “You have to be a tiger. A shark. Willing to do anything. And you’re not.”
I was crestfallen, but I recovered quickly. Too quickly, perhaps. I hadn’t taken him seriously enough. Working, for me, was sometimes a refuge from the thinking that precedes intelligent decisions. Action was easier than sitting still, reaching deep inside for understanding. While working often had good results, I wish now I’d taken more time for reflection.
Charlie’s generosity was legendary. After admiring his shirt or suit, a curator or even Tom would find himself being measured by Charlie’s tailor the very next day. He overwhelmed me once when he brought me fabric for a skirt from London after I’d complimented him on his flowered Liberty tie. He would invite a group of us out for dinner after meetings or openings, always including curators, secretaries, or other staff members. One memorable time, early that summer, as we sat around a table at Les Pleiades (a restaurant that was a club for the art world), all the lights went out. The great blackout of 1977 had begun. Soon, candles appeared and we finished our dinner in a newly romantic ambiance. With no radio or TV, we had no idea what had happened. All telephone circuits were busy, New York was isolated. As far as we knew, the blackout could have extended everywhere in the world. The streets without traffic lights were eerie. Buildings were dark. Of course no elevators were running. And Charles lived on the twenty-fifth floor. Then in his seventies, very overweight, he’d recently been ill. There was no way he could climb those stairs. “You must come home with me,” I said.
“I couldn’t possibly! What would your husband say?”
But there was no alternative, so we walked down to Sixty-sixth Street and up the one flight of steps to our apartment. Installing Charles in the bedroom was another struggle — he pushed hard for the living room sofa — but he finally gave in. We had just sat down for a nightcap by candlelight when stones began to pelt the living room windows, at which Charles leaped up, waving his cane and shouting, “They’re attacking! The Communists are attacking! I’ll murder them!” But it was only some of my son Cully’s friends, who came for some food and drinks, then left again to investigate New York’s dark streets.
Other trustees were also helpful. Joel Ehrenkranz, the first to invite me to lunch at his “club,” the elegant barroom of the Four Seasons, assured me of his support. “Anything I can do, any time, just let me know.” I looked around the room at the big publishing moguls and peered into the corner to see who was lunching with Philip Johnson that day. I did ask Joel to teach me to read and understand the budget. Thanks to his skill and his patience, I learned a lot. Even though I never achieved his lightning-fast comprehension of those arcane sheets of numbers, which sometimes seemed to dance like jumping beans on their white sheets of paper, I did end up recognizing potential problems as deficits leaped off the page and alarmed me.
Larry Tisch was our most powerful trustee in the financial world. Compact, with a disproportionately large, balding head, blue eyes, and a serious mien, he was soft-spoken and courteous. His manner was kindly, almost fatherly. Larry asked me to meet with the finance committee; he was chairman. Right after I became president, I agreed, and arranged to go to his office at 666 Fifth Avenue. His office was large but plain. Larry’s desk was altogether clear. He exuded the sort of controlled calm that sometimes accompanies success. The phones on his desk had been silenced. The only sound I heard was the click-clack of the ticker tapes, keeping Larry apprised of stock market transactions the world over.
We must, he began, do something about the Whitney’s endowment. And he explained why. At a time when it was quite possible to double or triple values, the J. P. Morgan bank’s conservative policies had kept the Museum’s money stagnant. Howard, as an outsider aware of our strong family tradition of investing with Morgan, had been reluctant to move the funds. On that day, though, Larry told me that the whole finance committee had advised me, for the sake of the Museum and its need for more income, to take immediate action. Larry, head of the committee, urged the change.
It was up to me.
I was sure he must be right, especially since Morgan’s had not done well with the small trust fund they administered for me. I arranged to see Lewis Preston, then chairman of Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. A small matter for them, I thought. Fifteen or so million, when they deal in billions.
I had always known Lew Preston. Our parents, even our grandparents, had been friends. His stepdaughter, Linda Bartlett, who’d grown up with Lew and her mother, Patsy, after their marriage, was married to my brother, Leverett Miller. Lew cared about my family, about the Museum, and also, of course, about his bank. And he was experienced, intelligent, and moral.
But the bit was in my teeth and I was running with it. My finance committee was smarter than anyone. It had the best interests of the Museum at heart. No chance it could be wrong.
In Lew’s paneled office on Wall Street, I listened to his understated way of addressing issues. His comfortably assured manner, his relaxed humor, our shared background, were wholly familiar. I had grown up with them.
Lew couldn’t have been nicer, but I could tell my plan to move the money distressed him. Well, there was no rush, he said. There was plenty of time to decide. He could help me sort things out. Would I meet with him again? Along with a couple of other bank officers, too, so I could hear their views? Of course I agreed.
But my mind was already made up. Closed, really. I’d never met such brilliant financiers as those on the finance committee. And then, I remembered my small trust fund.
When I reported back to Larry Tisch, he reiterated his arguments, probably to strengthen my resolve.
Then, at 1:00 on August 1, 1977, in an austere room at 9 West Fifty-seventh Street — Morgan’s uptown offices — a formidable group assembled. Lew himself joined us, attentive, as top officers presented sheets of figures, comparing Morgan’s performance over many years with that of investment firms and other banks. They suggested a number of ways to improve the Museum fund’s returns. The men were impressive, their arguments persuasive. But when I took their figures back to the investment committee, Larry’s numbers were even more convincing. The committee was unanimous about moving our money — and insistent.
I called Lew to tell him of our decision to remove the fund and divide it among several investment firms. “I’m really grateful to you,” I said. “I appreciate all your help. But I must go along with Larry and the committee.”
I still remember Lew’s final words exactly as he said them: “I believe you’re making a mistake. I urge you to think longer about severing ties with Morgan’s, and to reconsider your choice of advisors.”
He saw the removal of the Museum’s funds as a crack in the longtime association of the Whitney family with Morgan’s, or so I thought then. A few family members still had deep pockets — my uncle, some cousins from another branch — and I imagined the possible loss of their money caused Lew’s unhappiness with my decision.
Looking back, I well understand why Lew doubted Larry’s long-term commitment to the Whitney.
For that moment, though, my very first action as president was to put my faith in our new trustees, especially in Larry Tisch. It seemed absurd to think that his lack of interest in art could in any way limit his capacity to give the Museum financial advice. He didn’t really have to care about our mission. Larry would surely give the Whitney his best.
How often, since I now live with their consequences, I’ve wondered about my decisions and actions.
My upbringing had led me to believe daily life was consistent and predictable.
By the time I realized it wasn’t so for everyone, I’d already learned to trust. Though I chafed under their discipline, adults were there. And they cared.
Perhaps the trust I had in others was implanted in my being during my early years. Both my parents were trusting souls. Innocent. Trust became as natural as breathing, laughing, or crying. Although I had been trusting, as they were, for a long time, experience eventually brought home the reality that none of us is perfect. That it was irresponsible to go out into the big world with the wide eyes of a child. That even those I thought I knew could behave differently if a great deal was at stake. That I must be wary.
Deeply motivated, I now felt free to telephone anyone at all, known to me or not, make a date, and discuss the Museum. I reached out to heads of government, corporations, social and community leaders, the media. At first, I felt uncomfortable with my sudden power — like being in someone else’s skin.
Slowly, I gained assurance. The board supported me strongly, as did the staff. Insisting that I become a more public representative of the Whitney, Tom pushed me to the center as we raised money and attended meetings, press conferences, openings, and other events. If this was how I could be most useful, I determined to develop that persona, and practicing made it much easier. As we relentlessly pursued funding for exhibitions or acquisitions, to my surprise, I discovered that I enjoyed the hunt — especially when we succeeded.
It always surprised me when people I hardly knew were suddenly so friendly! I accepted as many invitations as I could from important figures in the worlds of business, politics, and art. Having up to then known so few of these, it was a good way to identify new patrons for the Museum — but following up on each event took lots of time.
Was X, Y, or Z likely to be interested? Able to help significantly? Already committed to another museum? I had to learn to engage in endless phone calls. To arrange invitations to lunch or dinner, tours with curators, or in some cases with Tom himself.
While by nature I was shy, I found myself enjoying the challenge of drawing people closer to the Whitney. My deep sense of mission was driving me.
However, it was all more complicated than it had seemed initially. Everyone, it seemed, wanted something from me, friends as well as strangers. Calls, letters, visits. And I had to answer all of them, had to be available to anyone with a question, a complaint, or a demand. This aspect of my new position became a daily challenge. There were times I felt discouraged, overwhelmed.
A friend of a friend’s daughter would like a job at the Whitney; I’d talk to her, then decide whether to put her in touch with our personnel department.
A member of the Friends of the Whitney wanted to borrow a painting not on the approved list. Could I arrange it?
Artists sent slides. Should I pass them on to a curator?
A guard was in debt. He was sure I could lend him money; after all, wasn’t I a Whitney?
A friend of a trustee wanted tickets to MoMA’s sold-out Picasso exhibit. Should I bother my friend, MoMA’s president?
Jeannette Watson, the owner of Books & Company, a bookstore in a brownstone the Whitney owned, was worried by rumors she’d heard that her building would be torn down for our addition. Could I reassure her? If not, what would she do?
A gallery owner or even a trustee couldn’t understand why we didn’t buy or show a particular artist they admired or collected. Should I tell Tom? Deal with it myself?
How could we have such a dreadful exhibition? That one was easy.
Most recently, a video artist complained to a friend of a friend that his exhibition at the Whitney hadn’t been reviewed. Outrageous, he maintained. Could I do something about it? This time, I was outraged. I had no control — nor should I have had — over the reviewers.
The intensity of my daily schedule was engulfing me. My appointment books often show eighteen-hour days, varying from Museum activities to book business. Trying to keep fit, I ran a mile or two in Central Park every other morning. There were moments that summer, however, when I worried about having abandoned the concentrated work on my grandmother’s biography for a more active role in the world. Moments, too, when I wished for more time with the family.
Michelle had remarried and was living in Oregon, where her husband was studying to be a computer programmer — a prescient choice of career, since its possibilities have grown immensely. Her new husband, Bill Evans, a part-time ski instructor, was a charming, warm, rock-solid young man, and we were all delighted by Miche’s new happiness. He loved her son Anthony and had adopted him, since Anthony’s birth father had virtually disappeared.
Duncan had also found his mate, beautiful and intelligent Linda Stern, intensely loving and loyal, and adored by Dunc — and by us all. They were living in Connecticut while rebuilding an old wreck of a house from the ground up. Duncan was starting a flourishing business as a carpenter-builder, and soon, in 1980, they were married in Linda’s parents’ apartment in New York, with a gala party after in the garage under our carriage house apartment on Sixty-sixth Street, which we’d filled with flowers, tables and chairs, and music.
Cully had graduated from Yale in June, and was working as an investigative reporter for the Hartford Courant, a job he greatly enjoyed. Cully met his future wife, Libby Cameron, a lovely Washingtonian who has now become a renowned interior designer, the same year. Still in school, she hadn’t yet decided on a career, and in 1980 she went off to Gerald Durrell’s refuge on Jersey, a Channel Island near France. There she cared for endangered animals: tapirs, tamarind monkeys, crowned pigeons. When a lowland gorilla mauled her, she decided not to be a zookeeper! Cully went to meet her in London, and they traveled in Europe for a month before he started working for Stuart McKinney’s congressional campaign in Connecticut. All the family hoped a marriage was in the offing.
Our youngest, Fiona, taking time off between semesters at Barnard College in New York, had chosen a wide menu of activities to expand her world. She’d gone to Paris on a “semester abroad” and, besides taking courses at Reid Hall, the Paris extension of Barnard, she learned to cook a number of complex dishes. Back home at Christmastime, she produced a gorgeous Bûche de Noël. After a spell as a waitress in my brother Leverett’s restaurant in Palm Beach, she joined the crew of Maroufa, one of the Tall Ships racing from Bermuda to Newport in 1976 in celebration of our bicentennial year. We’d sailed to Newport to see the ships come in, but with such bad weather reports we huddled around the radio on our boat, waiting anxiously for Maroufa’s arrival. Ship after ship appeared, flags flying, crews saluting from high in the rigging, as the waiting crowds shouted their hurrahs from sea and shore. Finally Maroufa rounded the bend and we bellowed our cheers. Apparently Fiona and her good friend Jackson Friedman, Bob and Abby’s son, were the only crew members not to be completely laid out by seasickness, and they’d taken charge of the huge ship during the worst storms and waterspout dangers!
Now, in 1977, Fi was back at Barnard, living in a Columbia dorm, working part-time for the Columbia radio station, WKCR.
By the fall of 1977, troubles at the Museum were brewing.
After every Museum meeting, a trustee or a staff member would take me aside and complain about Tom’s inadequacy. What weak choices he had made in Patterson Sims and also in our new administrator, Palmer Wald. How much time Tom wasted on seating arrangements for parties. How he’d offended this one or that one. People seldom took me aside to praise, mostly to blame. I listened seriously to everyone. I guess I hadn’t yet learned that most of us focus on the weaknesses we see; somehow we think we help most by pointing them out. But, being inexperienced, I took all I heard to heart. And I worried a lot. The honeymoon was over.
Trustee and art historian Jules Prown felt Patterson’s exhibitions of the permanent collection showed a lack of scholarship and judgment. When I discussed this criticism with Tom, he replied that Jules’s experience as a professor and university art museum director didn’t necessarily apply to a big city museum. The Whitney needed to appeal to a wide public. We should have a senior curator, Jules thought, grounded in all periods of art scholarship. Before we undertook extensive planning toward expansion, he insisted, this issue must be discussed and dealt with. Surprisingly, he did have confidence in Tom’s and my collaboration. But he was concerned about our direction in expanding the board — we were overemphasizing money and success in our candidates. I knew that, while Tom and I always tried for a good balance of types, we were definitely trying to add trustees with both money and clout. Rightly so, we felt, considering our needs, goals, and vulnerability.
Jules also found fault with our catalogues: they were unprofessional, lacking in scholarship and connoisseurship. But I found them excellent in scholarship, scope, and design — though sometimes offbeat. For example: when Tom asked Michael Crichton to write the Jasper Johns catalogue, he justified this unusual choice by pointing out the number of intellectuals who’d recently published work on Johns. A fresh look by an intelligent, lively writer, Tom said, might bring new insights about Johns, perhaps be better able to reach the broader public we were hoping for. I certainly found Crichton’s book very good — and Johns himself approved. In a similar thrust, Tom chose many other unorthodox writers for catalogues, including Roland Barthes, for example, who wrote so clearly about Cy Twombly’s work.
Palmer Wald, the Museum’s administrator, weighed in, too, with his criticisms.
Palmer liked to laugh. With a tidy mop of gray curls above a cheerful pink face, and a sharp sense of humor, Palmer enjoyed his life outside the Museum as well as inside. But mellow as he was, Palmer was becoming increasingly concerned. Tom, he told me, wasn’t having serious discussions about policy with senior staff. Curators, many of whom were inexperienced, needed more time, too — more guidance.
Still, Palmer felt encouraged by Tom’s and my partnership and saw the Museum, and Tom, more positively than others I had spoken with. Although some trustees were demonizing him, Tom, like all humans, was neither entirely perfect nor entirely imperfect.
Then, Joel Ehrenkranz visited me at home, early on the morning of November 16. We drank coffee and I listened to him. Would I talk with Tom and convey the criticisms of him with enormous tact, all the while emphasizing the positive aspects? Tell him that within three months we must have an associate director in charge of artistic matters, giving that director the authority to make all decisions in this area. If he didn’t agree — we still had to do it. Anyway, Joel thought, since Tom liked the job, he probably would agree eventually. People always do best what they like to do.
I promised Joel I’d discuss the matter with Tom, and I did. I didn’t agree with Joel, however; Tom didn’t need an associate director. Tom’s job was to run the Whitney as he thought best, including organizing and hiring his staff. By second-guessing him, we’d weaken his ability to lead, and he’d lose the enthusiasm and energy we prized in him. By telling Tom to hire an associate director, I’d undermine his authority. I couldn’t do it. I did discuss Joel’s ideas with him, but it was clear that Tom wanted the artistic portfolio as part of his directorial responsibility.
The idea of a senior curator had been a recurring subject of conversations between Tom and me. Other museums with senior curators were bigger than the Whitney. Since Tom had assembled his own team of fine young curators, he knew just how he wanted to work with them. Tom, originally at Howard Lipman’s request, now at mine on behalf of the trustees, searched, interviewed, sought the counsel of others, without success. Meantime, the young curators he had hired produced exhibitions of high quality, and as the years passed they grew and flourished. (Most have gone on to illustrious careers as directors or deputy directors in prominent museums.)
I recorded all this in my journal, along with names of the many trustees who had called me to complain about Tom’s faults in areas of art, communication, organization, extravagance.
Change and criticism at the Whitney, I was beginning to realize, were two sides of the same golden coin. It was up to me to flip that coin with luck and wisdom, to protect its precious substance. Could I do it? How did I feel about the criticisms?
Since some of the people who had encouraged me to become president and work with Tom were now complaining so vociferously, I felt they were undermining me. I trusted Tom’s motives, his ambition for the Whitney, and his vision. I leaned on his broad shoulders. Those who criticized, after all, didn’t have the ultimate responsibility. I had to rely upon my own judgment. But as new president of the Whitney, I trusted in each person’s accuracy and integrity. I gave equal weight to all complaints. By assessing and disregarding some of them, I could have achieved a solid position of authority for Tom and myself. Only time and experience taught me much later to discriminate.
At that time, I worried, and when Bill Marsteller — head of his advertising company, Marsteller Burson, and trustee head of our development committee — offered to lend the Museum one of his best officers, I accepted. Elias Buchwald was to study the relationship of the public relations department to the rest of the Museum. The group of trustees I worked with closely — officers, mostly — saw this as a first step toward addressing complaints, something that Tom could accept. Not too threatening. But Buchwald soon found other problems: the staff lacked a shared view of the image the Whitney wished to project, he said. Some found Tom inaccessible, lacking in respect for them, immersed in irrelevant details, and unwilling to delegate responsibility. On the other hand, “Bucky” pointed out, Tom had a strong and clear idea of what he, Tom, wanted the Whitney to be: a place for the permanent collection with better facilities for exhibiting it, so that the Whitney might be the preeminent home for American art generally and American twentieth-century art in particular. Tom believed he must attract money from rich people in order to buy art that would make the collection the best in its area. Therefore the details he’d become involved in, and for which he was criticized, such as the napkins for a dinner party, were relevant.
On December 1, the Museum’s officers — Howard, Joel, Dan Childs, Charles Simon, and I — met to discuss Bucky’s report. After I had conveyed its essence, I asked each officer to comment.
Charles, brutally honest as always, said it was exactly what he himself had perceived. Tom was “colder than a frog’s rear end,” it was difficult to reach him, and all the staff felt this. I listened, remembering that at other times Charles had seemed very fond of Tom indeed.
No one, Howard said, was perfect, remaining mostly inscrutable. Why, I wondered, had his great affection for Tom, his support of him, lessened? This is something I still wonder about, and perhaps will never resolve.
As for Joel, he found Tom arrogant, and said he alienated many people.
Almost all agreed that the most important project at this time was the acquisition of neighboring buildings. We should deal with that now. To control this site secured the Museum’s future.
After the meeting, driving home, Charles, Howard, and I agreed that we were the three active trustees with the greatest emotional commitment to the Whitney. Was Tom, in their opinion, representing the Whitney to the public as a proper leader, I asked? Howard was silent. Had I asked him a few months ago, said Charles, he would have said yes. He was far more uncertain now. The Museum had changed, much as Salomon Brothers, Charles’s old firm, had. How, I asked.
The board, said Charles, had gone from being idealistic and committed to public service to becoming a board of self-interested, tigerish, youngish businessmen. The older Whitney trustees, like Howard and himself, knew about American art, cared about younger artists, and wanted the Museum to remain supportive of these artists. They had no hidden agendas, their motives were pure; they had a genuine love of art, and faith in the Museum. They wanted to include in the Museum family other patrons who also loved art, not simply those with money. But the others didn’t understand the Whitney’s original ideals. To them, “bigger” was invariably “better.” They liked publicity and parties. They wanted to use the Museum and their contacts there for their social and business purposes.
And Tom, in Charles’ opinion, was the same way.
Was my role, I asked, to provide the leadership that would maintain the Whitney’s true nature?
Yes, said Charles. But he questioned whether I had the sophistication or the battle scars to confront Tom, either to change him, or to ask him to leave. Art was becoming a big business. Artists, often pushed by their dealers, were now making decisions based on their capacity to earn money, making career-oriented choices, instead of working steadily and patiently to develop their talent. I’d be bucking the new system.
While taking all this seriously, I wondered about those former ideals. What were they? To collect, preserve, and exhibit American art, the best we could find, of the twentieth century. To serve the artist and the public. Had this changed? Weren’t we, in fact, doing just that? I thought of the exhibitions up at the moment: in October 1977, for instance, a retrospective of Jasper Johns opened. Perhaps some trustees had other-than-noble reasons for wanting to be on the board, but after all, most of us had mixed motives. Including myself. So what? Human beings are all imperfect.
I knew, too, how high Tom’s ideals were for the Whitney. How all he did was directed toward achieving those ideals. He had to operate in the new world of which Howard and Charles were so critical.
For the moment, the Museum’s destiny was hooked to Tom’s speedy engine. As we careened along toward the ’80s, I decided to hang on for dear life.
Despite all the criticisms, I felt good about the Museum and my work. Tom and I complemented each other and modified each other’s weaknesses: he encouraged me to be a public leader of the Whitney, to speak with conviction, and to appear confident and resolute, to reach out to the important people who could help us; I encouraged him to pay more attention to each trustee, as well as to those members he found unsympathetic, who were potential patrons. More powerful by nature than I, Tom was a born leader. Once he was sure of his goals, he pursued them with a single focus. Whatever insecurities he may have harbored inwardly, he outwardly radiated assurance. Then, bit by bit, he assembled a team of talented young men and women whose enthusiasm and abilities almost matched his own.
On December 8, after the executive committee meeting, Tom, Steve Muller, and I repaired to Gafé Nicholson — my choice for our next heart-to-heart talk. This restaurant, in sculptor Jo Davidson’s old studio, was unique. It opened only at the whim of the owner-chef. Skylights lit its airy space. Brilliant birds in cages hung from the ceiling. On the marble floor, between life-size nude sculptures and potted trees, tables stood, generously spaced. A patrician woman in austere black, with a chignon of blonde hair, recited the unvarying menu, culminating with a chocolate soufflé.
Complaints were normal, Steve thought. Especially when a major project involving physical expansion and a campaign for millions lay just ahead. People, those with deep pockets, became anxious. They questioned everything, hoping to find a reason not to give. And the staff, naturally, were anxious about their jobs, assuming that Tom would want his own team. Was I hearing complaints from Tom’s new curators, he wanted to know? I wasn’t.
Since I knew Steve had raised so many millions for Johns Hopkins, his words reassured me.
And Tom was convincing, too. Together, we would accomplish miracles. We would buy the brownstones next door. We would build a splendid collection and house it in a splendid building. But the unhappy trustees, I asked?
We would win them over, Tom assured me. Although he didn’t suffer fools gladly, if at all, from now on he would be more patient, give them more attention. He’d remember that the stakes were high. As for me, well, why should I feel insecure? Look what I’d already done, the money I’d raised, when no one thought it possible!
Tom was referring especially to a pledge I’d been able to win from Bob Wilson, a member of our finance committee, and a crackerjack investor. He’d started with almost nothing, and made a fortune. Since he became both a close friend and a key trustee, I’ll say a little more about him.
My present husband, Sydney, and I traveled in India with Bob, learning his ways: his yoga straps for exercising that he used every day without fail, making a growly noise like a rolling bowling ball. His disciplined diet, by which he’s maintained his trim figure despite his love of fine wines. His conservative political views, to which he sticks, as he does to his many liberal friends. He’s a mass of contradictions. He abhors “losers,” he says. Not having achieved fame and fortune, we fit rather neatly into his definition of such, but he’s genuinely fond of us — as we are of him.
Bob stands tall and straight, with sandy hair. His plain face is alert and attentive. His intelligent eyes give you a thorough once-over. He says what he thinks. He’s attracted to certain works of art, and scornful of others, no matter how highly endorsed they may be, and he’ll make that quite clear.
Bob’s other passions center on the opera, on monuments of the past, and on beautiful birds. He travels the world over, searching out the finest of each. And he really knows about them. He’s been chairman, for instance, of the New York City Opera, where he put a shaky institution on sound financial footing, without sacrificing quality. Once committed, he’s extremely generous and supportive; the Whitney has benefited by his leadership, as well as by his major gifts.
Bob gives exquisite dinners for ten to twelve carefully chosen guests, usually leaders in their fields, at which he often guides conversation so as to bring out the diversity of their opinions, encouraging quite vehement but seldom acrimonious discussions.
Bob has no pretensions. I like his habitually casual, tieless garb, his dry, acerbic humor (but not his racist jokes). He’s idiosyncratic, a complex and memorable friend.
I’d planned to talk with Bob about his giving money toward purchasing the neighboring brownstones. We’d made a date.
I felt comfortable with Bob. But I was nervous. I’d never before asked for big money by myself. I’d asked Bob to become part of our “family” — meaning, to become a trustee — to be committed with us to the idea of expansion, to pledge $100,000 to help buy the brownstones. That seemed like a huge amount, especially from a nontrustee, and Bob, after listening carefully, had said a polite but firm “no.” He didn’t like to give away such large sums all at once. I wasn’t surprised, but I was disappointed by my failure.
The next morning, I went to the Regency Hotel, owned by Larry Tisch, for a breakfast meeting of the finance committee. There we sat, grandly isolated in the middle of the big room Larry had reserved. Everyone but Bob. “Where is Bob?” asked Larry. Someone remarked that he never went to breakfast meetings. “Oh, in that case,” said Larry, “he definitely won’t be here. He never changes his mind.”
After the meeting, I walked back to Sixty-sixth Street. When I opened the door, my daughter, Michelle, visiting from San Francisco, called excitedly down the stairs. “Mom, do you always get messages like this early in the morning? Someone named Bob just phoned and said, ‘Tell your mother I’ve decided to give the one hundred thousand dollars after all!’ ”
Leaving Café Nicholson, I felt that same burst of joyful pride.
Yes.
We can do anything.