Whitney Women and the Museum They Made

Those I respected were beginning to encourage me to think this was indeed the right time. The Whitney in 1978 was emerging at last from a long, barren slump into a period of bursting creativity and excitement. Sylvan Cole, erudite senior gallery owner, told me. Philip Johnson, mischievous dean of architects, leaned toward me at an opening and whispered with his sharp, silken tongue that he’d been noticing how the Whitney was doing many more vanguard shows than the Modern — for decades, “his” museum. And, on a rare moment alone with Johns Hopkins president Steve Muller, former chair of the long range planning committee and still on the Whitney’s board, he said that institutions were always either on the rise or declining. This was the right time for the Whitney to be rising. He and others were interested only in this aspect of the Museum; we’d lose them if we opted for “gentility” instead. I was the right person to be leading now, Steve went on — and Tom was, too. I’d learned to “use my vulnerabilities.”

What did he mean? That if I felt shy about leading a meeting, or asking for money, that quirk could make my plea more effective? Make people want to help?

In the September 1978 issue of the AIA Journal, Bernard P. Spring, dean of the school of architecture at City College, wrote a long article entitled “Evaluation: The Whitney Suffers from Success.” Perfect for our purpose, to persuade trustees, and others, of the urgency to expand. Spring talked about many of the changes causing this need.

The first sign of the difference is the regular presence of a hot dog vendor’s cart at the corner of 75th Street and Madison Avenue. … In New York, this can only mean that this once sedate location has become a lively center of popular culture. On Tuesday evenings when a major oil company underwrites free admission, a large crowd begins to gather an hour before opening time and with considerable camaraderie lounges along the granite balustrade surrounding the sunken outdoor sculpture court. …

My own recollections of the building in its first few years … remind me how much like a club or a private mansion it was at first. The people who conceived this original design must have been thinking of serving that small group of aficionados who before the 1960s were devoted to American art. … Even as the building was under construction, the recognition of the importance of American art and artists was growing rapidly along with the size of the audience for museums in general and American art in particular. …

Tom, he reported, believed that the building functioned perfectly for about one thousand visitors per day, not for the three thousand to five thousand people who now visited on a busy day. These crowds altered the nature of the building itself — small galleries, for instance, had changed from “intimate stopping places to part of the irresistible traffic flow patterns of the adjacent large galleries. Gone are the parquet floors. They have been covered with commercial carpet. Gone is the wood paneling on the walls. It has been covered with plaster to accommodate more works of art. Gone, too, is most of the domestic furniture. It has been replaced by the familiar museum bench which tells you not to linger if you must sit at all.”

Spring continues with a detailed analysis of changes in partitions and gallery use, necessary in view of the changing perceptions of American art, the numbers of visitors, and the program itself. He concludes:

“The program has been so successful that it has outgrown its home. The collection is larger than the storage areas can hold. … Breuer and Smith’s building continues to hold up well as a public monument to the importance of American art. Its only failure has been in keeping up with the success of the program it houses.”

A good overview, it seems to me, of the years since 1966: changes in the building, changes in the art world. Convincing. An objective, qualified outsider was singing our song. We made copies for each trustee. Discussing our needs in trustees meetings, we made charts, curators led tours of our building — including the basement, including our storage facilities, including the permanent collection installation, including offices once generous and windowed, now divided into tiny cells; including outmoded heating and air-conditioning systems; including guards’ lounge areas; and even including public rest rooms. All, all, ranging from inadequate to uncomfortable to downright dangerous — for people, for the building, and for art. We pointed out the large knockout panel in the wall that Breuer and the building committee had installed to make expansion to the south easier.

While we couldn’t immediately expand our building, we began to explore other ways to get the collection out into the world, and decided to enlarge our branch museum program. We found corporations, also expanding, that needed an “amenity” in exchange for more height, or to counter some kind of bad PR. By adding a public component to their building, they could make it bigger, and a museum space was just the thing. The corporation, the museum, and the public all benefited.

Ulrich (“Rick”) Franzen, a leader of the young architects whose ideas and buildings were modifying and softening the strict tenets of modernism, had originally brought the Whitney and Philip Morris together in an art purchase program. He had then encouraged them to include a branch in their new building. Franzen also was the broker in our arrangement with Andrew Sigler, CEO of Champion International, where we had our first out-of-town branch in Franzen’s fine building in Stamford, Connecticut. When Rick showed me his model for our branch museum in the new Philip Morris building he had designed at Park Avenue and Forty-Second Street, I was thrilled at this new opportunity to reach a new public, to put sculpture in a public place, and to make a new marriage between the corporation and the Museum. As in the ancient cities of Europe, we too have the potential to create art-filled buildings, streets, and parks, with fine sculptors like Frank Stella, Mark di Suvero, Tom Otterness, and many others who design their work for the public as well as for the museum-goer.

The idea of branch museums had been approved by the board on condition that they not put the Museum to any expense — preferably, that they make a profit — and we were all looking forward to this new outreach to a greater public.

Meantime, we were evicted from our first branch on Water Street, used for the education program. The Reichman brothers, who owned Olympia and York and had bought 55 Water Street, were quite different from the Uris brothers, and seeing an exhibition there, or perhaps only hearing of it, they decided not to renew our lease. Their message was “Nude sculpture — no way.” David Hupert, head of our education department, and I decided to have a last try at persuading them. They were, we learned, orthodox Jews so observant they wouldn’t eat anything but unpeeled bananas if they didn’t know the source of the food; they did all their business with a handshake; they probably wouldn’t do any business with a woman. Nevertheless, one brother gave us an appointment, and turned out to be very polite, very sympathetic. Our hopes rose — but we were wrong. The nude sculpture was the culprit, no doubt, although he insisted they needed the space for added income. The Whitney was out.

Keeping other spaces for any length of time proved difficult. A jail we’d settled nicely into, with cells making perfect studios, was reclaimed; then another city building was taken back to be used for the homeless. The Museum’s education department, however, flourished despite the setbacks.

The Independent Study Program is unique. There are three interacting subdivisions: the Studio Program, for artists; Critical Perspectives on Visual Culture, for writers, teachers and critics; and the Curatorial Fellows, for those wishing to work in museums. A quasi-independent entity, it’s supported by the Whitney and is very much a part of it, but seems like a well-kept secret — few outsiders are aware of it. It’s the only educational program in the country where art history majors and artists are students together; the only one where students from universities here and abroad interact with the roiling art world of New York; the only program where students can curate museum exhibitions; and the only program virtually free. It is oversubscribed; some years, as many as five hundred persons apply for two dozen places. Artists, musicians, dancers, critics, and professors advise, lecture, and critique. The tone and direction is often highly political. Some trustees might find it too left-wing, and would be surprised by some of the shows in the branch and occasionally in the uptown Whitney, but they rarely question the program. I recall one student exhibition uptown where a painting containing graphic homosexual imagery, years before Mapplethorpe shocked the world, caused one horrified trustee to threaten to resign unless it was removed (it wasn’t and he didn’t).

Ron Clark, head of ISP, arranges for people of extraordinarily high quality to be available to students. Long-term teachers have included dancer and choreographer Yvonne Rainer; artists David Diao, Mary Kelly, and Martha Rosier; critics and writers Benjamin Buchloh and Hal Foster. Many graduates have become successful artists, curators, critics, and professors — for example, artists Julian Schnabel, John Newman, Bryan Hunt, Glenn Ligon, Jenny Holzer, Tom Otterness; art critic Robera Smith; and Jack Bankowsky, the editor of Art Forum. Several became curators at the Whitney: Lisa Phillips, Richard Marshall, Richard Armstrong, Karl Willers. And Joanne Cassullo has been a very meaningful trustee for many years.

Our central project, however, remained the expansion of our main building. In October, Leonard Lauder, Joel Ehrenkranz, Richard Ravitch, Tom, and I met to discuss plans. Ravitch had been a partner in H.R.H., the construction company that had built the Whitney. Now we hoped he would guide our expansion program. This was a good group to do the planning, I felt certain. The executive committee later that day started the whole project going. Discussion was led by Steve Muller, Joel, and especially Leonard, producing the decision I had both hoped for and dreaded — to move ahead with expansion.

Dreaded? Well, the responsibility was daunting. I was prone to moments of doubt. In myself. In the board. In Tom. In our ability to carry through such an immense project with plenty of doubters in our midst. Still, my self-confidence had increased a great deal. I no longer quaked at the idea of running meetings, I loved the feeling of accomplishing, of meeting a challenge, of realizing that I was good at getting the most from people. At finding the position or the committee where they’d be the most helpful and most satisfied.

Meanwhile, this big executive, head of the Whitney Museum, wanted to come home to be cuddled. To read poetry, to laugh, to talk over the day, to put on blue jeans and make poulet a l’estragon and steamed fennel. Since I was staying in New York on weekdays in the late ’70s, I spent many evenings alone. By 1980, Sydney and I were together, and we shared many quiet evenings of cooking, reading, or listening to music. “Despite these questionings,” I wrote to my friend Clare Forster in 1978, “I’ve never felt better in my whole life, which amazes me, since I’m 50.”

Despite exhilaration, despite the optimism of many trustees, despite Tom’s confidence, nagging doubts persisted. Steve Muller had arrived at the first meeting of the long range planning committee already convinced that the Whitney should expand. Jules Prown told me he did not agree, nor did everyone else on the committee. I must decide, Jules said — I must maintain the Museum’s continuity from Gertrude to Juliana, to Lloyd, to Jack, to Tom. He urged me to spend lots of time thinking about the future of the Museum. Good advice, but how to follow it? When day-to-day problems and people were absorbing all my time, when we lacked funds and I had constantly to raise them? Some advisors even maintained that expansion was not only necessary for our programs, but was the best way to raise money for desperately needed endowment.

Leonard, so positive both at executive committee meetings and when trustees approved buying the brownstones at their meeting, invited me for breakfast at the Plaza. I was feverish with incipient flu. I could barely get up — finally forcing myself — then found myself having to listen to endless criticism of Tom and the Whitney. All with a smile but absolutely devastating nonetheless. My head was spinning, my fever mounting. The collection was terrible, curators inept, Tom alienated people all over the United States, the board didn’t have enough contributing trustees or the right ethnic balance, the Museum had no status or quality — but great potential! — and we should either fire Tom or hire a senior curator immediately. He planned to hit Tom with all this, wanted to tell me first. He asked to be on the nominating committee — I agreed — and said he’d contribute twenty-five thousand dollars to year-end giving. I thanked him, and tried to respond, but as I later said to Tom, one shouldn’t have a meal with Leonard unless one is feeling perfect. Tom said, one shouldn’t pass Leonard on the street unless one feels perfect!

I had no clout like Blanchette Rockefeller (president of MoMA), or Doug Dillon (president of the Metropolitan), Leonard said. While this was perhaps true, my heritage at the Museum was a big asset, and with the help of Tom and the curators I was getting to know the artists and patrons, becoming recognized, too, by them and by the media. Leonard’s assessment would have intimidated me a few years ago. Now, I took it in stride, recognizing its truth in terms of the traditional power and money I lacked, and determined to compensate by even harder work and greater commitment.

But the problems we would confront over the next years were already right there in 1978. Hurt and doubting Leonard’s criticism of Tom and the Museum, I was blind to their effect — on our plans to expand; on the board’s support and enthusiasm; on many of our most powerful and wealthy patrons. I didn’t like what I was hearing from Leonard, so I pushed it aside, listening instead to the positive messages coming from others.

My heedlessness was dangerous for the Museum, as well as for Tom. We were forging ahead with plans even our tiny group of leaders weren’t really sold on.

When Dick Ravitch came to my office on January 8 with his outline of a plan, he urged haste, saying he would help to organize and carry through the preliminary stages of hiring an architect to do a zoning study, get the permits we needed, meet with Mayor Koch, and accomplish various other tasks; all this shouldn’t take more than thirty days. (Hard to believe we thought that anything could happen that fast!) Tom and I were ready to go. But there was always a mix of signals, saying go, and don’t go. The state of the budget was directly tied to the trustees’ acceptance of expansion plans. Occasionally, these meshed perfectly. One icy cold morning, after jogging around the Central Park reservoir, I prepared for that afternoon’s executive committee and trustees meetings.

Trustees: unrestricted gifts by Jan. 8, 1978, had been $90,675.25
(eight trustees);

Membership figures, during a period of having no development officer, had improved dramatically — from a total of 618 to 1,132. Corporate membership had gone from 80 to 100, mostly thanks to Leonard Lauder.

At the meeting, the trustees seemed pleased about our annual giving and membership figures; Joel said it was due to me, and all clapped. I was touched. “NOW comes the work,” I wrote in my journal. “Will I ever be able to do it — to hold all these threads and keep them straight, and accomplish everything we want to?”

That day, despite all my anxieties, was one of triumph. I knew, however, and it pained me, that Tom hadn’t received the credit due him for the good news.

We pushed ahead with planning, with buying the brownstones next door. With raising money. Thanks to Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the Trust for Cultural Resources act had just been passed by the state legislature. This act benefited the Museum of Modern Art by diverting taxes to them from an apartment building being constructed in conjunction with their major expansion. When, at a contentious executive committee meeting, Joel mentioned a million tax dollars a year as a possible benefit to the Whitney if we, too, used this legislation, Howard said puckishly, “Well, when we have this winter wonderland …” I grabbed a pencil to note these words indicating a happy change in atmosphere. Glancing across the table at Tom, I saw a mirror image, and we shared a secret smile.

Other questions to be addressed: Should we acquire the missing building on Seventy-fourth Street for $1.25 million? (We eventually bought it for $3.5 million in 1994.) Or the lease of Trinin’s stationery store, extending to 1994, for $250,000? (We didn’t.) Arthur Raybin, fund-raising expert, said he’d never had such promising interviews except at the Metropolitan Opera, a legendary success story, and we were encouraged. By April, we were “at last putting our feet in the water,” as Steve Muller said. I was suddenly frightened. Doing what we decided implied commitment to build something. What would happen to me? Could I delegate most of it to Leonard? Would I be even more swamped than I was already? What about my private life?

Philip Johnson invited me to lunch at his special table in the Four Seasons Grill. He knew everyone and, it seemed, everything. All the answers. To my surprise, he thought — or pretended he thought — the Met should take over MoMA, but the Whitney had a clearer mission and should remain independent, having a unique role to fulfill — showing contemporary art by living artists. But we must expand. And he would like to help us find a head curator, such as Walter Hopps. We must also find a major funding source.

Problems plagued us. In February 1979, the National Labor Relations Board informed the Whitney that a petition for election to certify the United Auto Workers as the bargaining agent for office clerical workers had been filed by the UAW. This, we felt, was wrong for such a small institution as ours, and would also constitute a wedge driven in by an aggressive, powerful union, hoping, ultimately, to unionize our curatorial staff. Our clerical workers included many bright young college graduates and graduate students eager to be promoted to assistant curators; we hoped our own administrative staff could settle any problems with them, hoped a big impersonal union would not come between this small group and the intimate world of curators, a librarian, a public relations head, a financial officer, an administrator, Tom himself.

But museum salaries in general were low, including the Whitney’s. And some employees were dissatisfied, wanting extra “perks,” such as invitations to lenders’ dinners and more recognition for the long hours they put in, promotions, and raises, which Tom didn’t always feel were justified.

Leonard offered to fly Al Vadnais, a labor consultant for Estée Lauder (large, not unionized, and for-profit, in contrast to the Whitney, which was small, already had several unions, and was not-for-profit) from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to advise us on proper procedures.

The problems could be counteracted by compensating the unusually intelligent, well-educated employees for not having their qualities fully used, Al told us. Employees must feel appreciated. They must sense a new attitude. But despite Al’s efforts to lead us in a campaign against the union, the election on March 15, 1979, recognized Local 259 of the UAW by a vote of twelve to nine. So we had the UAW in our midst. Palmer Wald, the Museum’s administrator, who would have to deal most directly with union members, was very upset.

Employees gave most of any increases in salary to the union. I could sense subtle differences: a lessening of trust, of openness, of easiness. I hated that.

Meantime, Al Vadnais had interviewed staff members and reported to the executive committee, of which I was the chair, without Tom present. He undermined Tom in a damaging way in front of our major supporters, blaming him for the whole union situation, and accusing him of being sexist, racist, and arrogant.

The Whitney, Tom thought, must emerge from a small family museum into a great institution serving a bigger public. He wanted to formalize the relationships he thought too casual, to establish hierarchies, to tighten the structure of the Museum. If he had faults, I could excuse many of them. Tom was not a racist, nor a sexist. Building a team who would work together, he sought the highest quality in staffing and in programs, according to his standards of excellence. Whether hiring a new curator, making a major acquisition, mounting an innovative exhibition, cleaning a dirty floor, correcting a misleading wall label, replacing fading flowers in a gallery, demanding better food or more attractive table settings for a dinner, Tom was aiming for perfection. And it showed. In the Museum, in its programs.

I knew all that, but no doubt I didn’t articulate it well enough to counter Al’s criticisms, probably backed, if not initiated, by Leonard. The executive committee was dismayed. It authorized me to employ a management consultant, Joe Merriam, whose recommendations for small changes seemed sensible to me. Tom, however, resented what he saw as unwarranted interference with his management of the Museum.

Tom’s desire to keep board and staff separate was in the best tradition of the Whitney. In keeping with my grandmother’s policy, the Museum had always been extremely liberal regarding staff autonomy. But she had never had to deal with fund-raising, she’d never had to face the resulting demands of generous donors who wanted a voice in how their money was spent.

Caught in the middle, instinctively wanting equality and fairness for all, I began to sense what was happening. Confrontations between Tom and Al Vadnais or Tom and Joe Merriam cloaked the worsening rift between Tom and Leonard. This to me was much more dangerous to the Museum than unions. By any objective standards, Leonard represented the Museum’s only real power. He had earned wide respect, not simply for his wealth but for his generosity. And his commitment to the Museum, which he’d made clear, was essential for our future. So what if he sometimes talked a lot at meetings? He often had good ideas. Moreover, he was close to many political figures whose help we would need in seeking permits and zoning changes for our building, and to the CEOs we’d need for fund-raising. Leonard alone, I believed, could make our big dream happen. His growing resentment of Tom, and Tom’s barely veiled impatience with Leonard, alarmed me. I had no influence at all with Leonard. Polite and charming as always, he would not yield an inch in his opinion of our leader. It coincided with that of Al Vadnais, and of disgruntled staff members, and of whomever he was listening to outside the Museum.

They were squaring off like boxers, I see that now. Neither would give the other a break, but rather than having it out then and there, they complained to me, or, more destructively, to secret buddies. Could I have helped, if I’d seen it more clearly? Probably not.

Joe recommended that Tom hire an assistant director who would take on much programmatic responsibility, leaving Tom free to focus on our expansion project. But Tom had already found his assistant director, although he didn’t give her the title for years: Jennifer Russell, an extremely intelligent and capable young woman who had joined the Museum in 1974 as curatorial assistant. A native New Yorker, Jennifer is a graduate of Wellesley College and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University, from which she has an M.A. degree. Her extraordinary administrative skill was combined with equanimity and a great talent for laughing — at herself, as well as at much else in life. Totally unpretentious, she entirely appreciated Tom’s humor. Many years later, when Jennifer applied for an important position at the Metropolitan Museum, the director called Tom to ask about her. Tom could think of nothing remotely negative to say. “But no one can be that perfect, surely?” said the director. “Well,” said Tom, finally hitting upon a memory, “you shouldn’t expect her to wear high heels to parties!” Increasingly, in the ’80s, Jennifer took over responsibility for the many details of program and planning, including the expansion project. Her energy, ability, humor, and high standards made everything work, and she remained a bright star during all her years at the Museum. Jennifer and Tom worked together beautifully.

Leonard himself proposed a process whereby we’d come up with three schemes. The first included adding minimum necessary space, with and without the “doctor’s building” on Seventy-fourth Street, which would square off our property and which we hadn’t been able to acquire. The second would be with and without needing zoning changes. And the third would mean building either an apartment tower or a building for our own use (but with commercial space on the ground floor and office space above) in a structure of scale and character to suit that part of Madison Avenue.

A problem surfaced almost immediately. Tom’s space projections were high, much higher than Leonard had projected. “There’s no use in going through all this,” Tom said, “and still not having enough space for what we want to accomplish.”

Again, I felt caught in the middle. Again, the budget and operations committee had rejected the budget for the next year, because the projected deficit was too big. In the deep hours of the night, I wondered if we could maintain a Museum doubled in size, even with an additional $15 million of endowment.

However, the small campaign group — Joel, Leonard, Tom, Palmer, and I — forged ahead. We explored. We were encouraged. Our fiftieth anniversary year, 1980, was fast approaching. The long-term implication of all we were planning — birthday celebrations; major exhibitions; two new branch museums; the new National Committee; new planning committees; greater public relations efforts; increased fund-raising; an ever more intense search for new trustees and committee members — was expansion. Since acquisition committees now raised big money, the collection was growing, in quality and quantity. Therefore, the need for more exhibition space was growing. The board itself was growing.

Steve Muller put the case well in a letter he wrote to me explaining why he couldn’t come to a key executive committee meeting but inviting me to use his letter:

It remains my wholehearted conviction that an inescapable obligation now confronts the trustees of the Whitney Museum to proceed with a capital campaign. The right moment is inexorably now. There is a 50^th anniversary coming up. The board itself is stronger than it has ever been. The reputation of the Whitney has been growing by leaps and bounds, and its public exposure has been superb. (I congratulate you on the fine article and picture in today’s New York Times.) Everyone connected with the Museum has over the past few years acquired a deeper understanding of its institutional mission and importance. Facility expansion is mandatory. The step forward to a campaign is inescapable.

To back away from the responsibility which circumstances will literally thrust on the Board at this moment would be an unconscionable betrayal of the future of the Museum, perhaps forever. At least five years of preparation of various kinds have generated a momentum that few institutions ever acquire. To abort all that at the last moment would be a catastrophe which I cannot imagine, and which I absolutely believe no objective observer nor the judgment of history could ever condone. Trustees bear the burden of leadership. Leadership must move forward, not backward. The opportunity before the Museum is quite literally a once in a lifetime situation. It has a need and a right to life.

By 1985, Bob Wilson had replaced Larry Tisch as head of the investment committee. Not until February 1985 did the board formally authorize a capital campaign of $52.5 million, on the basis of trustee pledges made in the previous three months and of good news on the financial front.

Now, in 1979, Tom reported that attendance for ten months was up 43 percent from the previous year, attendance income was up 85 percent, net sales were up 63 percent. Membership was way up, too. Joel announced that the deficit would be less than half of what had been budgeted. Tom and I had raised $325,000 from new sources for the fiftieth anniversary exhibition fund, and seventy-five gifts of outstanding works of art had been given or promised to the Museum in honor of its birthday, to be shown together that summer.

By the next year, we were optimistic enough to think about an architect. This, of course, was the fun part, although there was controversy about whether to look for an “artist-architect” or a “nuts and bolts” firm to do the preliminary study. The first serious discussion took place at Philip Johnson and David Whitney’s apartment with Tom and me. Armchairs and a glass table designed by Le Corbusier sat on a gray rug, prints by Jasper Johns stood out against dark gray walls. I still remember five freesia plants in red, violet, and purple, and a cool white calla lily, all grown by David. As it grew dark, David dimmed the lights and, from our perch on the twenty-third floor, the city moved in. We must tell Dick Ravitch that we want an “artist-architect” to work with Davis Brody, and must start the process of choosing him soon, was the upshot of our talk. A small group would be best: Tom and I, advised by Philip and David, and others as we saw fit — Bob Wilson, Sondra Gilman, Leonard Lauder, Victor Ganz.

From the beginning, Philip influenced our project. He was purported to make or break the reputations of innovative young or even older architects. That was probably true. He was both beloved and hated by them, both admired and excoriated for his wit and accomplishments. To me, he was a helpful advisor.

Discussing the building program with the executive committee the next day, I was surprised to find that members were only interested in its cost, not even asking which architects we’d consider.

The first to contribute money toward buying the neighboring brownstones, Bob Wilson was now the first to offer a generous pledge for expansion: $1.5 million, if we matched it five times. In March 1981, Bob joined Tom, Philip Johnson, and me at the Four Seasons Grill in the Seagram Building. “Philip was charming,” I wrote in my diary, “he went out of his way to bring Bob into his charmed circle (me too maybe!) with conversation, our cocktails ‘Americanos’ on table, wit, erudition. We made a list of about eight architects to interview, starting with Richard Meier because he’s doing two museums right now, in Atlanta and Stuttgart.”

Feeling it to be appropriate to the Whitney’s persona and mission, we limited our search to the generation after Breuer’s. This decision eliminated, for example, I. M. Pei and Edward Larrabee Barnes, who had experience, with distinction, in building or adding to museums, and were close to Marcel Breuer. Little did we foresee the distress we would cause by not even considering most modernist architects, who were threatened by the new wave of “youngsters,” already in their late forties or fifties. For architects, though, that’s young and immature. Philip, for instance, already in his seventies, was at the peak of his career.

First, a meeting with the kernel of our building committee: Elizabeth Petrie, Brendan Gill, Alfred Taubman, Victor Ganz, Tom, and me. (Philip came to this first meeting as an advisor.) Elizabeth agreed to be its chairman, although she felt her brief time in New York would prevent her from being an effective fund-raiser, and she knew how important money would be. But others would take care of that, we told her. The Petries had chosen Robert Venturi, dean of the “postmodernist” school, to design their house on Georgica Pond, in Wainscot, Long Island, and Elizabeth had interviewed and researched the field before making the final choice. She’d had broad experience with institutions in Philadelphia. In addition, she was one of the few women to whom men really listened. They appreciated her intelligence, her grasp of a situation, her ideas, and, despite her strength and determination, her gentle, nonthreatening ways. We were grateful to Elizabeth for undertaking this job. We had no idea how traumatic it would become, for her, for us all.

Victor’s voice, his passion, were essential to our project. Since he didn’t hold a position of great power in the business world, he had the same doubts as Elizabeth did about fund-raising, but we persuaded him he was not only vital to our choice of architect but to our whole definition and articulation of our mission.

I had hoped that someday Brendan Gill would write of this search. For a merry search it was, especially with his superior understanding of the history, poetry, excitement, and glory of architecture. How he loved buildings! How richly he responded to those we now saw, which represented the buoyant, humanistic spirit of the ’80s! Captivated by Brendan’s response, his understanding, his contextualizing, and his dazzling language, we gained a deeper understanding of what we saw and heard. How I treasured the wonder of listening, again and again, to some of the most brilliant minds of the day enunciating their concerns and ideas about art, architecture, and life itself.

Traveling, learning, looking at innovative buildings, made this part of 1981 a magical time.

Sondra Gilman, planning to contribute the auditorium, joined us sometimes; Leonard Lauder, occasionally; Alfred Taubman became a key member; others sat in from time to time. But we were a small group. An elite group. Did we shut out others on the board who would have liked to be more closely involved? Probably, especially if they were to make major gifts to the building. One of our many mistakes, no doubt. On the other hand, working with a small, hand-picked group ensured flexibility and also the likelihood of agreement.

In May we “did” New York architects: Charles Gwathmey in the morning and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates in the afternoon. On a June morning, Helmut Jahn visited us from Chicago with a dazzling presentation at the Museum, and we decided to visit his office in Chicago. That afternoon we met with Sam Brody and Lou Davis, most recently involved in planning some of the new Met spaces. The next day, off to Philadelphia to see Robert Venturi and his partner and wife, Denise Scott-Brown. They rolled out the red carpet, showing us their detailed plans for renovating and adding to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and feeding us a delicious lunch. Their emphasis on community relations and city planning made good sense, especially when they made a point of their knowledge and experience with this aspect of urban construction. We had no concept yet of its importance, but we were impressed.

Now I started to get flak from all those architects who were sure they knew exactly what the Museum needed. Ed Barnes, for instance, pushed hard for barnlike spaces. “You have your great building,” he argued, “all you need is big flexible space for the huge paintings and sculpture artists are creating today. Knowing I’m not in the running, I could be helpful, since I know Lajko so well, and the building too.” I respected Ed’s advice — but other ideas were already attracting us.

When we visited Michael Graves’s office in Princeton, New Jersey, we knew we were still more interested. Michael and his associate, Karen Wheeler, showed us models and drawings different from any we’d seen, combining classical ideas and a modern idiom that would produce clean-cut structures with age-old, proven elements: doors as ceremonial entries, windows you could open, city buildings of human scale, finished with marbles and precious metals, warm colors, varied textures, and even humor. Garlands, sculptures, carved ribbons, and greenery enriched his walls, roofs, doorways, and landscapes. When the budget allowed, Michael used sumptuous materials, but assured us he could make the most humble substance into a thing of beauty.

We were still looking when Marcel Breuer died. I was sad for his wife, Connie, and their children; I grieved for the friend with whom I had so recently played chess. Despite illness and lessening vigor, his intelligence had still flamed. His blue eyes still sparkling with humor, he had responded eagerly to questions about form, beauty, the earthy pleasures of life. His death gave us an even greater sense of responsibility for our choice of an architect to add to his building, his most famous in the United States and the only one in New York. We felt this obligation deeply, making all the more ironic the later objections of architects who seemed to think we wished to destroy Lajko’s work.

All these months, we had interviewed, explored, and seen a half-dozen eminent architects. It was time to decide. On Tuesday, October 13, 1981, I headed for New Jersey with Elizabeth, Tom, Brendan, and Alfred. Michael Graves was ready with designs and ideas. He spoke to us eloquently: all architecture before modernism was figurative — had sought to elaborate the themes of man and landscape. The cumulative effect of the modern movement had been to dismember the cultural language of architecture — to undermine the poetic form in favor of nonfigural, abstract geometries. Michael emphasized his wish that architecture would once again become figurative; that it would represent the mythic and ritual aspects of society. Michael’s poetic words, the beauty of his drawings, the ideas he expressed, all made us certain of our choice. We sat in his office, discussing details — timing, costs, and such — when I realized we hadn’t signaled our decision. “Wait! Stop talking!” I burst out. “We must remember this moment. Michael Graves, will you be our architect?” He beamed, while Alfred shattered my euphoria: “Oh Flora, we haven’t established his fees — that comes first!”

The next day, at the trustees’ meeting, we announced our choice to the board. Michael would come to the next meeting, I said, so everyone could meet him and hear his ideas. Afterward, the Lauders gave a dinner party for trustees and spouses. Enthusiasm abounded. I couldn’t resist, while thanking our hosts, proclaiming the bold project and its newly anointed architect, toasting the new building, although Leonard scolded me later, saying it must be a secret, for the time being. That we needed to get our ducks in order: zoning permissions, Community Board, the Landmarks Commission, all that. If we talked about it too much, he reminded me, we’d be asking for trouble. The more people knew, the more they’d talk — “you know that.” Of course, he was right. And I had warned the trustees, at the meeting, and again tonight. But it seemed a shame not to capitalize on the ebullience of the moment, impossible to recapture later.

By May 1982, Michael Graves had put together a lengthy document titled “Working Papers Toward a Building Program,” developed from interviews with staff members by his associate Karen Wheeler. The report first recognized the large, flexible spaces in the Breuer building, ideal for temporary exhibitions. Therefore, “The basic concept for the exhibition space in the new building is first, to provide a continuous, chronological survey of twentieth century American art by displaying ‘highlights’ of the permanent collection. Then, radiating from this core would be individual galleries devoted to special ‘concentrations’ of the Whitney Museum.”

These galleries would occupy forty thousand net square feet, not too big for retaining the sense of human scale and experience we so valued. Special rooms for the Hopper collection and for works on paper, orientation space, a roof garden for sculpture, a film/video gallery, some storage, and many support areas were researched and described. The library collection, corresponding to the Museum’s permanent collection, would form an exceptional resource for studies in American art and culture. Curators’ offices would be located nearby. The lobby, shop, and mailroom would be rethought and redesigned.

An auditorium seating 300 to 350 persons would be used primarily for lectures, symposia, and panel discussions but could also accommodate musical events, dance concerts, and modest dramatic productions. (The audience now sat on the floors of galleries for all such events.) A special events room near the kitchen, for parties, would be good for public relations, and could help us raise significant amounts of money for the Museum. A larger boardroom for our larger board would be necessary; a small dining room for entertaining special guests would also be useful: “a domestic scale room could also be seen as a remembrance of the Whitney’s history as a family institution.”

Much in the draft would be revised. But it was a fine start, and it was exciting to hold in our hands such a detailed document. At the 1982 annual meeting, Elizabeth Petrie felt able to say, “The planning process is proceeding with great care and devotion.”

In November, trustees met to discuss the building program that had been presented to them earlier. Elizabeth led the discussion, reviewing the six-year process leading to this day, beginning in 1976 with a memo from Mike Irving surveying the basic needs of the Museum, and delineating the program’s two primary accomplishments: to provide space for the permanent collection and facilities for its study. She announced the consensus of the building committee that the Archives of American Art should be included in the proposed building. The program, she emphasized, should not be considered a “wish list” but a carefully honed and examined document.

Based on experiences of dealing with any number of building programs, this was probably one of the most thoughtful and well done that he had ever seen, Leonard said.

This opinion from our most influential trustee was a big factor in the board’s unanimous approval of the architect’s fee of $175,000 plus expenses for the initial schematic design of the new building. Tom pointed out that the contract included delivery of a representative group of the architect’s drawings to show the basic stages of the design process, to become the property of the Museum, a most unusual agreement.

We felt sure we could raise the money we needed, albeit with a tremendous amount of work, but it would all be worth it in the end. We had a great architect, a great program, and we’d have a great building. Tom’s capacity for work seemed infinite. Focused on the Museum and its expansion, we were working more than ever as a real team.

Despite all the time I spent with trustees and staff, Sydney and I were adjusting happily to married life. We were getting to know each other’s friends and family. His daughter Alexandra (“Bimmy” to her loved ones) and her husband John Basinski, a delightful couple, welcomed me warmly into their family when we visited them in Philadelphia. Bimmy is a horticulturist and teacher, who gives erudite and lively classes at nearby Longwood Gardens and elsewhere. John was a proficient woodworker when we first met, and now, in addition to being a developer of malls in Pennsylvania and beyond, he rows daily on the Schuylkill — he logged a thousand miles in 1998! They recently organized a marvelous party for Sydney’s eightieth birthday at John’s rowing club, of which he is president. As we sipped champagne, delicate shells sped by us, oars flashing in the sunset, a lovely scene right out of an Eakins painting.

All the “children” were very involved with their own families and their work — I felt blessed when they could take time out for a dinner or an outing. Every summer, until 1990, we spent time in the Adirondacks together, refreshing times of renewal and fun, of getting to know each other all over again. Grandchildren arrived, and these weeks became even more precious, as I watched the next generation swimming, canoeing, and fishing in the same places as had I, my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. We’d breakfast on Duncan’s flap-jacks, made from a recipe from Louis Duane. We’d talk about old times, and make our plans for the day — for fishing, sailing, hikes. One day, my granddaughter Emily glimpsed a bear and shrieked with terror and joy — and I remembered the evening my son-in-law Bill Evans had answered a knock on the door, thinking some poor fisherman was lost in the dark and looking for help. But no, there was a huge bear, up on his hind legs, pushing on the screen door, only inches from Bill’s ashen face! At eight, Emily’s brother Michael caught his first bass in Plumley Pond, and I showed him a picture of myself, also at eight, with my first bass. My oldest grandchild, Anthony Evans, learned to water-ski when he was only nine. I’d sit on the deck watching him, drifting into reveries — was that my brother and sister, having their famous mile-long swimming race, or was it Miche and Dunc out there competing in Forked Lake? Was that my father trying out his new bamboo rod, rowing slowly in the varnished guideboat, or was it his namesake, my son Cully, practicing his casts before heading off to Bog Stream to lure elusive trout from their deep pools and feed us all our dinner? As I watched Fiona and her British beau preparing for a picnic outing, I remembered as if it were yesterday doing the same with my first love, the nephew of “Doc” Bergamini, the doctor who’d spent summers across the lake, at Squirrel Point, and who’d removed my appendix when I was eight. How shy I’d felt with his nephew David, lying in a canoe while the northern lights streamed across the sky above us, gorgeous, almost as dizzying as the first stirrings of passion.

Twenty-one