I still remember when John Pope-Hennessey, aristocratic head of the Met’s European Paintings department, came to see Juliet and Her Nurse. The apartment at 10 Gracie Square was elegantly shabby; I couldn’t even find the teacups. Our conversation was stilted because his British accent was so thick I could hardly understand a word he said. The Turner, as later described by Rita Rief in the Times, is “painted in his soft, dreamy style that anticipated Impressionism.” It depicts a festive scene in Venice, with crowds watching fireworks near San Marco, and Juliet and her nurse watching from a balcony lit by the flaming sky. The painting hung on green boiseries, over a Bechstein grand piano also painted green and decorated inside with illustrations for La Fontaine’s fables. It glowed in the gentle light from the East River. John was pacing slowly back and forth, looking intently, his concentration becoming absolute. We were silent for many minutes. I sensed how badly he wanted this painting for the Met.
I have a photograph of my mother sitting at Sotheby’s, on May 29, 1980, at 11:00 A.M. Elegant as always, in black trousers and a yellow and black silk print jacket, she sits between my brother Whit and me. John Marion leans over her, smiling, while Mum seems to be saying “Ooooh,” as she often did, with what Alida Morgan, a young cousin, calls “her fluted mouth.” And in fact she was excited, rather than sad. As John Marion described it in the “Flora” book:
“One of the highlights of my career occurred on May 29, 1980 when I was privileged to share with Mrs. Miller one moment that combined two of her greatest passions — the Whitney Museum and her Turner. … She knew it would be widely sought after, as did I. Neither of us, however, could anticipate that it would make auction history. … When I leaned forward to wish her good luck she whispered in response to me, ‘You’ll do just fine.’ Inspired by that gracious reassurance, I took my position. A hush fell over the room as I began the auction. Rather quickly the bidding passed the $2.5 million mark. The silence in the auction room was punctuated only by the sound from the two bidders — one over the telephone calling from London, the other present in the salesroom. In 6 minutes 4 seconds, I brought the hammer down for a record $6.4 million … the highest price at that time ever paid at auction for any work of art. … I will not forget this moment of history. Nor will I forget the special style and grace of the woman who made it possible.”
We were only disappointed that an individual, rather than a museum, had acquired Juliet. Someday, I hope, this wonderful work of art will settle where the public can see it.
The money from the sale that my mother gave the Museum paid for much of Michael Grave’s design fees for the addition to the Whitney that was never built.
For trustees, their spouses, and Michael Graves, in 1981 we had the “Ganzes’ and the 2 Floras” party. Bright red invitations bid guests to drinks at the Ganzes’, then across the hall to my mother’s apartment for dinner. On my black dress I pinned Gertrude’s parrot pin, exquisitely crafted with bright jewels and enamel, and felt just great. Trustees gasped at the Ganzes’ Picassos and Johnses, Rauschenbergs and Stellas. Then, next door, at seven round tables with pink tablecloths, green napkins, freesias and poppies, after duck and snowpeas, trustees made exuberant speeches with the pears and chocolate. A happy tone prevailed, and Mum was the queen of the evening. At eighty-four, still beautiful, elegant in her black sequins, she greeted everyone with sparkling warmth, making them feel welcome, part of her family.
How I miss Mum, still! How blessed I was to not only love my mother and be loved by her, but to work with her. While I had been grieved by her absences when I was a child, as she’d been by her own mother’s, we’d become close later, just as she and Gertrude had. She encouraged me in all I tried to do at the Whitney. She supported me with unfailing interest. She seemed delighted with everything Tom and I told her about. She always cared.
I remember so well the last day she came to the city, when she visited Michael Graves and me just a few months before she died in the summer of 1986. She wanted to see his final design for the Museum’s expansion. Although her failing eyesight made it difficult to see the drawings, she looked as hard as she could, and was enthusiastic about them and about our descriptions. She couldn’t have guessed how much that meant at a time when we were discouraged by the opposition the design had aroused.
Feeling it was vital for the institution, she wanted the family to keep its connection with the Whitney. How happy Fiona’s involvement with the Museum would make her today!
Twenty-three
Only deep emotions and momentous events resist time’s flattening effect, but these stay raw and vivid. Even today I can feel as distressed as I did in 1981 by the trouble between Larry Tisch and Tom. For a long time, I thought it could have been avoided, that somehow, there was a way I could have mediated, if I’d been more aware, stronger.
I no longer believe that.
Larry’s son had made an offer for an apartment in the Armstrongs’ co-op and was awaiting approval, sure he’d get it, because he knew Tom was on the building’s board and Larry had asked Tom to help. The board, however, despite Tom’s support, had just turned the son down. Board members had taken a strong dislike to him. Despite his son’s wanting to back out, Larry was determined and angry, using his power and influence to reverse the decision. I knew this situation could polarize the board and ruin all we had been working toward.
When Joel called me to say what a great job I was doing — how he heard this all over New York — I was appreciative, but wondered if it was really to see if I knew about the whole affair.
A few days later I received an angry phone call from Larry Tisch asking for an appointment to visit me the next morning at home.
Tom and I still hoped that together we could defuse the crisis. Certain Tom was being painted as an anti-Semite by Larry, I rushed about keeping busy. As Tom and I were having lunch together at Les Pleiades to discuss the matter, Leo Castelli joined us for coffee to ask me to meet Frank Stella and persuade him to sell the Whitney a painting Frank wanted someone else to have, since I’d had no part in whatever had happened to cool the Museum’s relationship with Frank. (The Whitney got the painting, and Frank and his wife Harriet soon became our friends.) When Leo left our table, I remember saying to Tom, “That is someone who wouldn’t speak to me if I weren’t president of the Whitney.” “If I were fired from the Whitney, I’d lose ninety percent of my ‘friends,’” said Tom cheerfully, and we agreed it was a good idea to distinguish friend from “friend,” little realizing how important it would soon become.
The next morning in a downpour, Larry arrived dripping, followed by Joel, an unexpected addition to our meeting. Calm at first, as soon as I disagreed with his version of what had happened, Larry became enraged, calling Tom a second-rate person, an anti-Semite.
Tom had supported Larry’s son to the best of his ability, I insisted; he hadn’t voted against him. On the contrary, he had spoken on his behalf, there was nothing he could do, and seeing it was hopeless, he had finally left the room before the vote.
None of this was true, Larry replied, and Tom was a liar, besides all his other bad qualities. Larry would resign from the board immediately, today, unless I fired Tom.
I used every argument I could to persuade him to consider the Museum. I reminded him of how I’d accepted his advice and taken the Whitney’s money away from my family’s advisors the very day I became president, demonstrating my loyalty to the institution, not the family. Didn’t he see he’d split the board, the most damaging thing he could do, by resigning?
But his face was stone. He just didn’t seem to care about the Museum. He’d tell everyone about Tom.
The Whitney, I insisted, had never been in the least bit prejudiced against any group. Right now a large percentage of the board was Jewish, many trustees identified and brought on by Tom. But Larry’s grim expression never changed. Finally, in desperation, I told him that I had two children marrying Jews, that very spring.
“In that case, they’re not rea
l Jews!” he answered.
Larry wasn’t angry at me, he insisted, only at Tom. The result, however, was the same for the Museum, and, therefore, for me.
Joel sat silent all this time as, more and more distressed by his tacit support of Larry, I finally asked him what he was doing there — wasn’t he the Museum’s vice president? “I thought I could help” was his only answer.
They left together, black umbrellas raised between my front door and the black limousine that awaited them.
I felt betrayed and angry, too. And I identified with Tom, with his distress.
Much later, in 1996, I learned that a member of the building’s board told David Solinger that he had blackballed Larry’s son. Tom had left the meeting, he said, so as not to be part of the decision. David believed this man, and changed his mind about Tom’s being responsible. If only he’d known at the time, the course of events might have been quite different.
Just before the trustees meeting, Tom, Howard, and I were wondering what to do when Joel walked in. Larry wanted to know if we’d be announcing his resignation that afternoon, he told us. “But we don’t have it in writing,” Howard answered. So I called Larry right away, and asked him for his resignation in writing, a sneaky — but lawful — device to delay the announcement I didn’t want to make at the meeting. Of course, that annoyed Larry all the more, as Joel told me the next day. His resignation wouldn’t be announced officially until the next meeting, in two months.
Larry withdrew his companies’ advertising from Time, because an editor there happened to be on the building’s board. He took his vengefulness further by calling a number of patients of a board member who was a doctor and persuading them to leave his care. Against Tom, his campaign was far-reaching and endless. Slander, lies, debasement. Most of it, I wasn’t even aware of. Knowing my support of Tom, few people would tell me. A year or more later, I consulted a reputable lawyer, who said we undoubtedly had a libel case against Larry — but Tom didn’t want to pursue it, feeling it would damage the Whitney. The harm done was pervasive and subtle: a web of gossip portraying Tom as arrogant, anti-Semitic, evil — and also a fool, a clown. A campaign destructive of all we had built, of all we hoped to build, and, ultimately, of Tom himself, as director of the Whitney.
The Whitney had been the first of the museums in Manhattan founded and maintained by WASPs to open its board to minorities. The others — the Metropolitan and the Modern — had been closed, as had many other cultural institutions, to the diversity we had welcomed. Had I thought Tom was anti-Semitic, I’d have fired him myself.
Torn between sympathy for Larry’s feelings and scorn for his methods, between believing in Tom’s actions and annoyance at its results, nightmares wracked my sleep.
Larry wasn’t angry at me, he kept insisting, but I felt his anger through the part of me that was the Museum.
Finally, although Larry’s fury was understandable given his mistaken impressions, his actions against Tom and the Whitney were outrageous. Justice, however, is often no match for the power of money. In the end, there seemed nothing to do but brazen it out. To continue. As time went on, things calmed down and I hoped they’d be forgotten. Howard Lipman advised me not to worry so much about Larry and Joel; “Don’t make life complicated,” he advised.
Twenty-four
The budget. More and more, everything seemed related to the budget.
Even the duration of my presidency.
One of my most important tasks, I had decided in 1978, early in my term, was to determine a good successor. After the David Solinger incident, I insisted on limited terms for officers. Vice president Joel agreed with me that they’d give both the president and the board an “out,” and would enable other trustees to realize that they too could or must accept major responsibility. The situation would become more dynamic.
I was surprised at how well I had been able to adapt to the change in my life — from wife, suburban mother of four, to hardworking president of a demanding institution. I liked much of it, especially the sense of accomplishment when things were going well. Nevertheless, I was beginning to need more of a private life. My new relationship with Sydney needed room to develop, to deepen. Sometimes, after a particularly long stretch of social events, my head was spinning, I hardly knew who I was. And of course, I had this gnawing doubt whether, without great wealth, I could ultimately lead the board to accomplish all we were trying to do. Leonard, I was convinced, could do a better job.
At an executive committee meeting in 1979, defining terms for officers was controversial. It was very sensitive of me to propose this, Leonard said, since I was the only one who could — as I had already pointed out. Trustees Dan Childs and David Solinger were opposed, saying that when someone is doing a good job, the institution should be able to keep them in their jobs. Leonard was the spokesman for those in favor: anyone, he maintained, uses up their resources, contacts, and probably their energy, after a while; opportunity for change is important. The vote was close: Joel, Leonard, Sandra Payson, Charles Simon, and I in favor; David, Dan, and Tom opposed.
If Tom had proposed such a far-reaching policy without consulting me, in direct opposition to our agreement, I would have been furious. And Tom was very upset. To change presidents in the midst of a major campaign for a new building could throw all our plans into chaos, he said. It had been a mistake not to discuss it with him beforehand. I had learned my lesson — the hard way, as usual.
Howard was also opposed to limited terms. Bad for the institution, he felt. Others, including myself, had confidence in the vitality of the institution to provide the necessary leadership. I promised to reopen the discussion at the next executive committee meeting, so Howard could present his views, but the decision remained the same. At the trustees meeting of March 1, Ed Bergman and Bob Friedman expressed strong disapproval, but with Leonard again leading those in favor, a maximum of two three-year terms for presidents was voted in.
Late in 1982, the time was fast approaching to act on my resolve. My term would be over in six months. I knew who should be our new leader, but could he, would he, work with Tom? Victor and I cornered Leonard at one of our parties: “You can be an enormous success in business, you can make the best lipstick in the world, you can make many millions, and you have done that. But nothing, nothing, will give you the satisfaction, the feeling of accomplishment, that the Museum will. Nothing will be as important to you in your whole life as knowing you have made the Whitney into the greatest museum of American art in the world, at a time when American art is the greatest art in the world. Who else has the privilege of doing this? It’s a unique chance.”
“Please say yes, Leonard, please. Only you can do this,” I pleaded.
Leonard looked at us both. And agreed.
We did a little dance as the doors opened on a surprised elevator operator and Leonard disappeared, smiling.
Tom promised to do his all to make the new partnership work. But his questions still remained: Why had the Lauders collected superb European art rather than American? Why had Leonard preferred to help with special drives for Calder’s Circus or Johns’s Three Flags, rather than to give large sums for general operations?
He warned that Leonard wanted to interfere with artistic policy, push certain artists, insist on exhibitions that might draw big crowds.
But Tom knew, as did Victor and I, that we had undertaken a project too immense for the two of us. That many necessary elements were not yet in place, those that only Leonard could provide. Among us only he had achieved the power that success and money bring. Only he had the necessary connections — political, corporate, communal. Only Leonard had such a fine reputation in the city. And most important, perhaps, was the quality of leadership, where he excelled.
We were ecstatic.
A meeting with Leonard, however, soon changed my joy to deepest gloom. He had thought long and hard, he said, about his spontaneous decision. He realized how disappointed I would be, but he had changed his mind. It was im
possible for him to do the big job he realized was necessary — after all, he was the key figure in Estée Lauder, two people he’d counted on were leaving, he couldn’t find enough time. Moreover, he’d always thought the addition too big, he couldn’t support its size or its cost, and Tom would never agree to reducing either.
And — the crux of the matter — he felt he couldn’t work with Tom.
But he certainly wouldn’t want his first act as president to be firing the director. Unless — could I … ?
“No, I couldn’t do that,” I said. “This whole project is Tom’s. Without Tom, it would never have started and won’t happen.”
No words of mine could change his mind.
He must have talked to advisors, those whose support he would need as president. They must have warned him he’d lose that support, unless he got rid of Tom. Larry Tisch? Others?
This is what I thought at the time, and what I still think today. It was a portentous moment for the Museum, and a sad moment for me. The coalition we’d worked so hard to create, for which we had such high hopes, seemed about to fall apart.
At the next trustees meeting, Leonard reported for the nominating committee, which, he said, had considered the question of the length of term of office of the president. The term had always been unlimited, until, initiated by me, the by-laws were amended in 1979 to provide that “no person shall be eligible for election to the office of president for more than six consecutive one-year terms.” Now, the nominating committee was considering a change, to make it inapplicable to the incumbent. Would Mrs. Biddle, George Weissman asked, be willing to serve further? I felt it was my responsibility, I said, to identify stronger leadership for the future, which had not yet been done, and would be the primary reason for my continuing.
Leonard, Victor, Tom, and I alone knew the real reason: that it was impossible to find anyone with Leonard’s qualifications. Victor had refused to consider it, sure he couldn’t do the necessary fund-raising. Alfred was too busy with the campaign he was chairing for his museum in Detroit. Bob Wilson was chairman of the New York City Opera. Steve Muller and Ed Bergman were resigning from the board in June, when their terms were up.
The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made Page 38
