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.
Hoped for? Absolutely. This was right for the Museum and the world.
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.
A messenger brought year-end figures around 11:30. I was absolutely astounded.
Trustees: unrestricted gifts by Jan. 8, 1978, had been $90,675.25
(eight trustees);
Jan. 8, 1979: $192,917.45 (thirteen trustees);
Members: Jan. 8, 1978: $130,371.72
(fifty-three members);
Jan. 8, 1979: $289,597.45 (ninety-three members);
45 of the 93 gifts were new, first time (or first in a long time).
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.
What happened? What changed?
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 zoni
ng 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.
The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made Page 34
