The months flew by quickly for everyone involved in the exhibition. The paintings loaned to the National Gallery began to arrive by Alitalia, each protected in a climate-controlled box designed and built by conservator Don Fechter’s staff. Most conservation work on the paintings had been accomplished at their sites-of-origin, although permission had been granted by some lenders for Fechter’s experts to complete the work in Washington, paid for through a private fund.
The publicity mill was in full gear. The media were bombarded with press releases, and the Gallery’s Speaker’s Bureau fielded an unprecedented number of requests. As might be expected, most were for Luther Mason. To the surprise of the National Gallery’s staff—Courtney Whitney III no exception—Mason graciously, even enthusiastically agreed to speak to the most important of the groups. He’d been reticent in the past about making public appearances. There were certain public relations efforts expected of curators—scholarly papers presented within the National Gallery and at other leading art centers, curatorial conferences, an occasional presentation to the trustees. Mason had always fulfilled those obligations, but not without his penchant for making dramatic protestations:
“Must I again stare into a room of vacant faces while I try to explain Caravaggio to them? Do you explain Mozart? Perhaps if I were speaking about a new Nintendo game or gene-splitting technique they would be interested. Why are Americans so comfortable with science but uncomfortable with art?”
Not this time.
“I think it’s wonderful,” deputy director Naomi Warren told Court Whitney over coffee in his office one morning. “It’s as though Luther not only discovered Grottesca, he discovered himself in the bargain.”
Whitney could only agree. Mason’s calendar was chockablock with talks and interviews. The only problem Mason’s leap into the spotlight created was the envy it generated in his senior-curator colleague, Paul Bishop. Bishop complained regularly to Whitney that the exhibition was turning into a circus, hardly befitting the reputation of the National Gallery of Art. The considerable professional and personal attributes that had qualified Whitney to be director of “America’s Museum” included the art of assuagement, which he found himself having to practice with Bishop nearly full time.
Since returning from Paris, Mason seemed to find an extra hour in each twenty-four-hour day, causing security guards to question whether the senior curator was sleeping at the Gallery. He was there day and night and insisted upon making the final decision on virtually every aspect of the exhibition, large and small, important and trivial. He challenged the design created by George Kublinski, chief of the Gallery’s Design and Exhibition Department, including the choice of color for the walls. Like all good curators—and the best exhibition specialists—Luther knew the importance of color as a backdrop for works of art. Kublinski’s plans called for the walls to be painted a burgundy thinned with a special white paint.
Mason disagreed. He’d spent days researching color and its relationship to Caravaggio’s work. The walls would be a pale apricot tint.
He took the same hands-on approach to the framing of Grottesca. The Matting and Framing Department, which fell under Donald Fechter’s conservation group on the National Gallery’s extensive organizational chart, had chosen an elaborate, bordering on the ornate, cherry frame with thin gold-leaf inlay.
“Too big, too rococo,” Mason insisted. “It detracts from the work. I want it kept simple, and smaller.” When he announced he would seek outside consultation with Max Mowinkle, a New York framer, the Gallery’s framers complained to Fechter. He dismissed their complaints. “The man is consumed by this show,” he told them. “Let him pick his own goddamn frame and get on with other things. You’d think he was in the frame.”
A week later, Luther attended a meeting of the Framing and Matting Department accompanied by Mowinkle, a diminutive man in his fifties who had a nervous tic in his left eye and spoke with a matching stammer. Mason presented the frame Mowinkle had created. It was cherry but considerably less bold than the original. There was no gold leaf, no elaborate carvings. It was slender and simple, barely protruding from the painting itself.
Fechter and his people were unanimous in their belief that Mason had made a bad choice. But again, Fechter declined to argue the point.
The next morning, Mowinkle dropped off a package at Mason’s apartment. Inside were two identical copies of the Grottesca frame. The doorman accepted them and handed the framer a fat envelope Luther had left with him before going to work that morning.
The press breakfast set for the day of the Caravaggio opening was a week away.
So was the dinner.
All the loaner works were in Washington and ready to be hung.
The show was sold out.
The two copies of Grottesca were in the rear of Luther’s living room closet, along with the duplicate frames.
“Mother?”
“Hello, Luther.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I feel all right.”
“Mother, I want you to come to Washington as my guest at the opening of my—our—Caravaggio exhibition.” He’d sent her some clippings.
“I read about it. Sounds very nice.”
“But only if you’re here. This is the greatest moment of my life, Mother. I want to share it with you.”
She said nothing.
“Julian will be here. It would be a good chance for the three of us to spend time together. Please say yes. I’ll send a first-class airline ticket to you by Federal Express. I’ve already booked a suite at the Watergate Hotel. You know that hotel. It was where Richard Nixon—”
“I know it. Why is it still open?”
“Will you?”
“Luther, I—”
“I won’t take no for an answer, Mother. I insist.”
She agreed, providing him with a profound sense of relief. It would be the last time he would ever see her.