For a long time, I expected perfection — in events, in places, in objects. Above all, in people. When they fell short, I found fault with them. I’d reject things, I’d reject people. Wanting to move on, to change lives. Hardest on myself, I’d also criticize those I most loved: my parents, my husband, my children. I didn’t see this for years. Even now, my critical nature is a problem. As a small child, I was expected to be good, all the time. The perfect posture I still retain, that erect and quite confrontational attitude, is a metaphor for that opposite side of my “ideal childhood”: Hold on tight to bad feelings. Control them. Sit on them.
How did these attitudes carry through to the Whitney Museum?
Though the world’s, and my own, imperfections loomed ever larger, the Museum always kept its magical aura. There, I believed, ideals could actually reach fruition. And I could help this to happen.
For some time, the dream was real. As it waned, my old tendencies revived. Finding villains aplenty, I insisted on the purity of the hero. I soon saw a battle between good and evil. And I wanted to win.
Instead, Tom was fired.
Why was this so important?
I’d assumed that many “family” aspects of the Museum would never change: the board’s sense of fairness toward the director. Smooth transitions from one director to another, from one president to the next. But now, the tightly knit, idealistic structure of the institution that was my heritage was dismantled. Board and staff were ruptured. I felt responsible, hurt, and guilty.
In this book, I’ve chosen what facts to use to bolster my own truth. It’s the story of a journey from childhood to age, from illusion to reality. It tells of change in an institution and change in me. Realizing, now, that I, like all humans, have the capacity for hostile and vengeful feelings, I’ve reached a better understanding and acceptance of myself and of others. Larry Tisch’s actions were destructive, but his feelings were genuine. What happened to Tom was wrong, but predictable, given the personalities involved plus the imbalance of power and money. As Jules said, there’s plenty of blame for everyone — but there’s a chance for growth, too.
The subtext of the story is about art and artists. Without them the story wouldn’t exist. Since Neolithic times, art has been a necessity for human beings, and artists have been the heart and soul of culture and society. No one, not even the artists who make it, can control art. These men and women are in touch with an ultimate mystery, with the essence of life’s meaning, and they bring it to us as a gift. The Museum’s politics must reflect an understanding of the importance of that vision in order to fully represent the art it exhibits.
This story is about how the Whitney changed as it grew. It’s about the three women who’ve been corner posts of the Whitney since its inception, and a fourth whose time is just beginning.
First, Gertrude. Passionate, striving, ambitious, she sought to escape from tedium, from the big social life she was born to, in order to work and create. In her spacious studios, with beautiful models, she developed her talent and became a fine sculptor. At the same time, impelled by generosity, love, and guilt, she became a patron. From this combination of motives, her powerful ideas, and then her public institution, evolved. The Whitney Museum, its striving to achieve a sympathetic environment for American art and artists, its perseverance, its faith, its beauty, and even its playfulness, was pure Gertrude.
Flora Miller succeeded her mother. Her motives were pristine. She wanted to continue the Museum exactly as the mother she’d admired and loved had imagined it. Through the institution, she would keep her mother alive. How faithful she was! How she worked, and pondered, and gave of herself — her time, her charm, and her heart. If not for my mother, there would be no Whitney Museum today. Deviations from the original dream were difficult for Flora Miller; she worried, even agonized, over the smallest of them. She was less self-confident than her mother; though courageous and willing, she was not an artist, not deeply involved in the art world. Moreover, her money was dribbling away. If she could pass the Museum on to me, she thought, it might stay true to its original principles.
Then I came along, with yet another set of incentives. Questing. A bigger life. An unrecognized need to achieve. Too much of this was unknown to me. All three of us, Gertrude, Mum, and I, were taught to hide from ourselves. We survived the depressions all humans are prone to, in various ways, each according to our natures: through work, art, children, play, lovers, amusements, rather than through self-knowledge.
At the Museum, I struggled to both maintain tradition and push the institution into today’s world — to provide the necessary balance between past and present. Money became such a pressing need, though, that today won out. Oh, the irony of having wanted change so badly, of having worked to bring it about, and then to see that change spin out of orbit. Change itself, though, is an elemental force. Like earth, air, fire, and water, like us humans too, it mirrors the disorder of earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanos, and floods.
Could I have saved Tom’s career? The question keeps haunting me. I could, perhaps, have warned him more decisively to be easier on those he didn’t respect, to give more attention to certain trustees. But it wasn’t in my nature to be authoritarian. That’s one of the reasons we were a good team. I’d have to be a real egotist to believe I could have controlled that situation. Power always went with money — why didn’t I know that? Because I didn’t know myself, or the world, well enough. I still thought I could make things happen because they seemed right. Supporting Tom and fighting for his tenure, I contravened my own desire that the board should operate by consensus. Convincing myself that a few of us could persuade, that we could change the minds of many, I was stubborn and nearsighted.
Thus, I was forced to recognize reality, and the pain it can bring. Has it made me cynical, callous? I don’t believe so. Bringing the real and painful into the light of consciousness may have helped me deal with it better. Although more suspicious and less trusting, I’m still ready to rejoice in the good and the beautiful.
Fiona Donovan — the fourth Whitney woman — is much clearer, more direct. She’s self-aware. Mature, with intuitive wisdom and compassion. Trained in art history, she’s capable of being either president or director, has been both a trustee and an employee, and is respected and liked by both board and staff. She’s strong and has a realistic view of things. She is married to Mark Donovan, a solid, delightful man — a gifted teacher, writer, and editor. They have two wonderful children, Flora and Tess. Fiona could leave the Museum without guilt. She doesn’t need it for escape or for anything else. Still, she loves it and feels responsible to its family tradition.
And now? Nearly ten years have passed since Tom was fired. Director David Ross has come and gone, leaving his imprint on the Whitney: a commitment to the living artist, especially the young, the adventuresome. In those years, Leonard Lauder, first as president, then as chairman, led a fund-raising campaign to create galleries for the permanent collection, designed by architect Richard Gluckman, on the fifth floor and mezzanine of the Breuer building. Gluckman, at the same time, relocated the Museum’s offices and library to the “doctor’s building” and the adjacent brownstone on Seventy-fourth Street, and gave the Breuer building itself a thorough rehabilitation.
Maxwell Anderson, the new director, is endeavoring to balance the budget, to encourage warmer relationships with artists and patrons, to move into the new electronic world, and to carry out his fine and ambitious plans for exhibitions, education, and the permanent collection.
Despite the large amounts of money raised, the bottom line has remained red. In fact, during the early ’90s, deficits were higher than ever before.
As new directors have brought in their own curators, development, financial, and personnel officers, registrars, assistant or associate directors, and assistants for all these, the staff has changed markedly. New staff members soon become friends, but I’m saddened by the lack of continuity resulting from this reshuffling of essential positions, of those who give the Museum its character. Sometimes, as I walk from one floor to another, only guards and preparators are familiar, dependable presences. There’s been a break in history, in stability; the atmosphere is different. Until recently, the Whitney was filled with people who could remember almost all the way back to its beginnings, or could recall hearing stories firsthand from those who were actually there. The passage of time alone alters every institution, leaving the earlier generations to contemplate not progress, but its inevitable disadvantages. The familiar disappears, grows strange. And change, however necessary, isn’t always pleasant.
At the Museum, fine exhibitions continue to be curated and installed, although I worry when financial pressures cause the board to ask that curators try for the easy, the popular — the “blockbuster” — at the expense of the new and innovative or the revival of a worthy, long-ignored, or forgotten artist. The permanent collection galleries are splendid, affording the public a fresh look at the classics of American art. Education programs flourish, reaching out to teachers and students in the public school system, challenging future artists and curators in the ISP, and providing classes, lectures, symposia, and other information, both in person and on the Internet, to our members. More, much more is happening. There are always parties, too, although they are likelier now to be fund-raisers. All in all, the Whitney looks great.
Since 1990, while I’ve participated much less in decision-making, I’ve continued to serve with pleasure on acquisition committees. I’ve worked with curators to add works of art to the permanent collection, and with the development department to raise money, and I’ve cochaired the Library Fellows. Recently, though, I had been living in Taos for half the year. Although I love the Museum as always and remain fixed in my concern for its welfare, I recognize that my time of active participation is over.
Who, since 1990, has cared for the Whitney?
Leonard Lauder, during David Ross’s tenure as director (1990–1998), became increasingly involved with the Whitney. He gave Ross his support and worked with him closely. It was Lauder’s idea, for example, to hold the “American Century” exhibition in 1999–2000, and he was instrumental in raising more money for it than for any previous Whitney exhibition. The show, curated by Barbara Haskell and Lisa Phillips, was not only elegant and illuminating but immensely popular.
During the 1990s, Lauder in many ways assumed the role that my family once held in the Museum. By bringing in powerful CEOs and other prominent businessmen and women, he shaped the board of trustees and, in addition, maintained its stability by staying in close touch with the trustees. After five years as president, he became chairman and chose the next two presidents: first, Gilbert Maurer, and now, Joel Ehrenkranz. Lauder donated a considerable amount to the Museum and he’s raised still more. Further, he’s purchased major works of art for the Whitney — among them, groups of paintings by Ad Reinhardt and Agnes Martin, a series of Brice Marden drawings, and a superb Jasper Johns drawing. He has personally funded very much needed curators for drawings and prints. In short, Leonard has given most generously to the Museum, not only of his wealth and art but of himself. The donation of his time and energy goes on and on.
Most importantly, perhaps, he has been an outstanding leader, infusing the board with his own confidence and enthusiasm. He runs meetings, or participates in them, with assurance, skill, and humor. Still the head of a multibillion dollar business, he manages nonetheless to attend most Whitney meetings — trustees, executive, budget, and drawing committees, all national committee weekends and trips — and continues to work closely with the director and curators.
The Whitney is indeed indebted to Leonard Lauder. It’s likely that he’ll take his place in history as the person who most enabled the Whitney to continue to grow larger and stronger in the ’90s.
No one will ever replace Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the visionary creator of the Whitney Museum of American Art. A sculptor herself, she well understood the need for the artist’s freedom to experiment, for the director’s freedom to choose, and for the absolute separation mandatory between staff and patron to ensure these freedoms. Since it never occurred to her — and at that time why should it have? — that the Museum one day might need money other than hers, her considerations were chiefly artistic. The wide attendance she’d hoped for had nothing to do with financial gain. The Museum’s needs were bound to change as it evolved into the great public institution it is today.
The Whitney, as other institutions before and since, has had to make the compromises its survival and growth demanded. These sacrifices were not small. Necessary, but not small. I hope that we never forget exactly what we had to lose to protect our gains. I hope we keep these losses precise in our memories and carry those ideals into the future. Let us remember, especially, the woman who believed that her ideals and her small, beloved Museum were inseparable.
While looking back is essential for understanding, I must now look forward. These words about the Whitney, written in 1954 by Lloyd Goodrich, remain as apt today:
The new Museum’s basic principles had already been shaped by years of experience and they have not changed essentially since. Though never precisely formulated, they might be summed up as a set of general beliefs: that the contemporary art of a nation has a special importance for its people regardless of comparisons with that of other nations or periods; that a museum’s function is not merely to conserve the past but to play an active part in the creative life of the present; that a museum should always be open to the new, the young, the experimental; that it should never forget that the artist is the prime mover in all artistic matters; that it should support his freedom of expression, respect his opinions and avoid any attempt to found a school.
May the Whitney always adhere to these values. May they remain the changeless root of all growth and change, the heart of the Museum.
As I leave the Whitney’s board in June 1999, after more than forty-one years, I will watch eagerly as Fiona takes her place as a trustee. Looking back over many years, I realize anew how central the Museum has been for me. As our relationship evolved, it’s been, in turn, mother, sister, child, and lover. It’s given me a richer life than I could possibly have imagined for myself, and it’s given me more pain, too — plus a true education. I’ve been blessed with a wonderful family, and the Whitney is a part of that complex orbit within which I spin out my days.