Peter Selz

by Paul J. Karlstrom

  What is happening is, a new kind of merchandise is being offered. I think the whole thing started with Pop Art and its sales pitch. Now, there are things in Pop that I find fascinating. I think Oldenburg is a great artist, as is George Segal. There are things in Realism, especially somebody like Chuck Close, which I also admire. But by and large, what you had in the beginning of Pop was a gallery-oriented art. It became very obvious what Lichtenstein was doing—he was enlarging a comic strip into gallery scale; and Rosenquist, diminishing the billboards he had been doing to gallery scale. So you suddenly had a gallery kind of art which could be sold and has been sold at very, very high prices. Then museums, of course, take part in all this—they can’t neglect it. But I feel that to a great extent it’s done by dealers . . . which is one reason why I was perfectly happy to leave New York when all this happened.18

  As Peter talked about the new and powerful role of the art market in New York at this time, he shifted his attention to the commercial aspects of rediscovering the art of the past. He recalled San Francisco writer and critic Alfred Frankenstein’s asserting “more than once” that before historic American art was valued by the market, it received little attention in art history departments in this country’s colleges and universities. Then, as interest caught on and prices went up, voilà: American art was being taught about on American campuses. Selz pointed to two illustrations of contrary developments deriving from this market-driven “discovery” phenomenon. One was the great increase in value of Thomas Eakins photographs as the artist began to be recognized—justifiably, in Selz’s view—not merely as a great American realist painter but as a “major figure of the nineteenth century.”19 In contrast, he disapproved of the parallel situation in which the works of minor American Impressionists (Impressionism was never very good in America, in his view) suddenly became extremely high priced.

  Turning to realism and the figure, Selz compared his New Images of Man, involving art that deals with personal feeling, to The New Realism, which at the time of the interview (1982) was on view at the Oakland Museum and which he considered for the most part “appalling.”20 He explained why he felt that way in a statement that eloquently reiterates his fundamental position on the subject of realism. To erroneously group artists together under that convenient rubric, he insists, entirely misses individual differences, including artistic goals, thereby obscuring the very meaning of the work:

  To my mind, the most important painting in America in the past decade is the last work of Philip Guston. But I wouldn’t call that realist. This is the kind of humanist figuration, human image feeling . . . that relates to our world, our life. Guston was the only one of the Abstract Expressionist generation who reached a great style in his old age, who painted pictures which are absolutely astonishing. Or the kind of figuration that [R. B.] Kitaj and Jim Dine have done, very different from Guston but also extraordinary. The other kind, most of the Photo-Realism, is tour-de-force painting—it shows what a painter can do by using photographs. But once you get over the fact—“my god, isn’t it remarkable how he managed to do this”—it isn’t all that exciting.21

  What Selz wants in art is subjectivity and metaphor. He never was interested in simple realistic rendition, whether academic nudes by William Adolphe Bouguereau or soup cans by Warhol. He acknowledges that dealing with photography has a point, but not enough of a point to engage his interest. As he warms to his subject, Peter’s efforts to convey his personal critical/historical perspective, referring to certain favorite artists, become both more urgent and more eloquent. The eagerness to convince an audience reveals the passion he brings to his work:

  Kitaj comes out of a collage tradition which deals with film and what Germans like [George] Grosz and [John] Heartfield were doing, with what the English were doing at the beginning of English Pop—but he’s bringing it into the context of American consciousness. He deals with a complexity of issues: reality, history, poetry, and the whole history of art (of which he’s totally aware). . . . And when I look at these complex paintings and try to figure them out, at the same time they have an extraordinary impact because of their intensity. Yes, that’s the important word: intensity. That’s what I find missing in paintings of cows and motorcycles, as much as I miss it in the kind of color field painting that [Clement] Greenberg was sponsoring.

  These are just formal exercises, and it really doesn’t matter to me if these exercises are abstract or realistic—they’re simply not interesting. They don’t have the kind of personal intensity, the personal engagement, the metaphor, the feeling, and the knowledge of art that should be in them—what I see in late Guston, and also in his early abstractions of the fifties and early sixties—the same knowledge of art, of himself, and deep [social/political] engagement. An emotional feeling, a sense of order, and an incredible sense of composition and color. It’s when the subjective vision is absent, the commitment—like in the new realism and some of the color-field painting—that I lose interest. But certainly I don’t have any stylistic preferences.22

  Selz’s ideas about significance in art unfold consistently, representing a carefully chosen vantage point. It is far less the particular style than the vision that he seeks and most admires when he finds it. In this he always returns to the work of his New York friend Mark Rothko. And the basis for this loyalty is that Rothko, more than any other artist, satisfies Selz’s desire to reconcile the nonobjective and the figurative poles. Selz also embraces the minimalism of John McLaughlin and Josef Albers’s Hard Edge abstractions, but that requires, given the human “presence” as the final measure, going beyond formalist criticism: “It is a sense of order. Art is broad enough that it should incorporate a person’s vision, whether an obvious sense of order or random. And it’s this [visionary] sense of order that I see in, for example, John McLaughlin—who had an extraordinary sensitivity to form. When I see that, I admire the work. Now, I admire it most when it comes together as in Mark Rothko. That I admire more than anything.”23

  By the mid-1960s, even Rothko and de Kooning were being viewed in some quarters as a “dead end,” at least for younger artists and critics. So Peter Selz’s exhibition record was subject to criticism from an impatient and changing art world that wanted to move forward. His willingness to adopt a contrary position in the face of prevalent art world fashion, most memorably 1960s Pop Art, appears to have also played a role in growing pressure for him to leave MoMA. The following account may be apocryphal, but it expresses the mood of the time and the rapid changes that were under way in the art world: One day in the early 1960s, Peter was rushing to a meeting somewhere in MoMA. Passing through the galleries he encountered Frank Stella, perhaps the leading figure among the “young Turks” of contemporary American art. Peter had forgotten his watch, so he stopped, greeted Frank, and asked him for the time. Frank paused and then responded, “It’s time for you to leave.”

  In New Art City, Jed Perl draws a picture of the Manhattan art world that is simultaneously positive and negative—vital, youthful, exciting, superactive, but increasingly cynical and commercialized. For nouveau riche collectors, art was an extension of personal wealth, a means to demonstrate power and social standing. Although the Museum of Modern Art still served as the institutional identity of modern and, to some extent, contemporary art,24 it was already coming to represent what a younger generation of artists was beginning to reject. There was a growing sense among them that the museum was becoming outdated, certainly in terms of their ideas, interests, and objectives. The popular Chuck Berry 1956 rock-and-roll youth-culture anthem, “Roll over Beethoven,” could just as well have been the theme song of the day in all creative fields.25 Others of Peter’s generation—including Greenberg and his favored artists, all supported by MoMA—were also subjected to the same suspicion and, finally, rejection that Selz was beginning to sense personally.

  In fact, the situation at the Museum of Modern Art was deteriorating for Peter. What started out as a dream job had become less so. Interviews cond
ucted by Sharon Zane with MoMA staff in a 1991 oral history project, along with internal museum memos, suggest several factors leading to Selz’s growing discomfort in his position at MoMA. Taken in no particular order they include curatorial infighting and rivalry (the oft-repeated but unsubstantiated rumor that Bill Seitz wanted Peter’s job); the extreme unlikelihood that Peter would ever realize his ambition of the top job as director; and possible dissatisfaction with him personally, or his performance, on the part of the administration. And one cannot discount the “Jewish issue” as an obstacle to Peter’s hopes for advancement. A fuller quote from the previously cited Art News editorial by Thomas B. Hess describes the Jewish “glass ceiling” in many museums, not excluding the supposedly progressive MoMA:

  Because most museums were founded by Old Money—the town’s country club set, established bankers, merchants, landlords—their boards of trustees retain a distinctive coloration chiefly marked by a suspicion of—let’s say snobbishness to—the New Rich. Which suggests a reason for one of the more curious anomalies in the museum world: its anti-semitism—the most widely known, unspoken fact in the field. Key positions in the best art-history departments . . . are open to Jews, but when the trustees for Eastern and Midwest museums go shopping for a director, it goes without saying that no Jew need apply (unless, naturally, he has successfully changed his name and his religion).26

  These difficulties, his co-workers generally agreed, combined to create a pressure to move on that Peter could not ignore.

  As much as Peter admired René d’Harnoncourt, a few of the MoMA interviewees speculated that Peter was rubbing him, and possibly Alfred Barr, the wrong way. In his 1973 history of the museum, Good Old Modern, Russell Lynes writes only that “Selz stayed for seven years, and was encouraged—indeed, urged—by d’Harnoncourt to accept a job at Berkeley.”27 Peter no doubt had detractors among his colleagues, most notably Porter McCray, who resented him and wanted to minimize his influence. It is difficult to draw conclusions about the actual situation, and Peter himself continues to paint a generally positive picture of his collegial relationships. Reading his 1994 MoMA interview, one would think that even if everything was not all roses, at least the working environment was civil and generally supportive. And that may have been the case on a superficial level. With the possible exception of Bill Seitz, however, Peter admits ruefully that he had no close friends among his colleagues at MoMA. Once in a staff meeting he looked around and tried to locate a single person who had invited him to his or her house, even just for cocktails if not dinner. He came up empty, a disappointment that evidently bothers him to this day.28

  Peter does bemoan the lack of real friendships at MoMA, but he tends still to think of his colleagues as “liking” him. That was presumably true in some cases, but a few colleagues, speaking for the record, were not always flattering. Collector and MoMA trustee Walter Bareiss, when asked by oral historian Sharon Zane about the departure of several key curators (among them Selz and Seitz), described a kind of administrative housecleaning:

  Even though I liked him personally, Seitz was not a very efficient person. I don’t think he could really hold the job the way he should. . . . Selz was a little too abrasive [italics in transcript]. I think he left because Barr wouldn’t stand for that—Dorothy Miller wouldn’t stand for it either. He was ambitious, a person who would take over. . . . But that in itself, why not? I don’t have any objection to people who try, and then they go and make their future at some other institution. It is nothing negative for their character. But there are some institutions [presumably MoMA was one] who [sic] cannot afford to have kings and princes.29

  Helen M. Franc, editorial associate and special assistant to d’Harnoncourt, who apparently got out before the situation further deteriorated, offers her own characterization of the environment during Selz’s tenure at the museum:

  It was a time of considerable internecine rivalry. I guess it was aggravated by the fact that after Alfred [Barr] was shunted from his position as director, the Museum was run by committee, which never does any institution any good. . . . It was a very disruptive time. Everybody hated everybody else in the Museum and there were alignments of who was against whom. Also, when I got to work with Porter [McCray], well, with René particularly, I realized there was a rather naive view of the staff towards what the function of a director was. So they thought he wasn’t paying enough attention to their little needs. . . .30

  Bill [Seitz] was more charismatic [than Selz] . . . but very self-centered. And when he was working on an exhibition he would bug out from all the responsibilities of the department and stay home, theoretically writing a catalogue. . . . Peter, who was less liked, was really a much better administrator; he carried on things. Bill was always trying to put the skids on Peter.31

  Generally speaking, the MoMA interviews give the impression that virtually everyone was unhappy and that many harbored grudges, especially against those above or in direct competition with them. Of course, this condition is true of many organized working environments, and apparently MoMA was no exception. Even Peter’s assistant, associate curator Alicia Legg, for whose work he had kind and appreciative words, described her boss’s departure in less than favorable terms: “Selz was sort of dismissed . . . was essentially asked to leave. Something about vouchers for trips he’d taken.” And surprisingly, in light of what Peter remembers as a positive working relationship, when Legg was asked if there weren’t some other dissatisfaction, her answer was “Yes. He just wasn’t up to the job.”32 Elsewhere in the interview, however, in speaking of her boss she sounds almost affectionate. And another co-worker, publications manager Frances Pernas, remembers Peter as a pleasure to work with: “He was a nice man. He had a warmth about him.”33

  Whatever the truth of these after-the-fact and sometimes almost hostile oral profiles, the overall picture is fairly dismal. As for Legg’s assertion that travel voucher irregularities, submitting claims for “more than he deserved,” were cause for his dismissal (as his colleagues believed he was), Peter acknowledges there was indeed a problem, documented by memos in the MoMA archives, but it was a small matter of $63.25 and occurred four years before he left the museum.34 Although it seems unlikely that this single early infraction would have been left simmering for so long, it may well have become part of a plan for later administrative action. But this was not the only, or even the most telling, aspect of a deteriorating situation that contributed to Selz’s decision to abandon New York for a fresh start both professionally and personally.

  • • •

  One mark of a full life is achieving some meaningful degree of balance between the professional arena and the private realm built around friends and, above all, family. These areas, though overlapping, remain separate experiential entities, and often work in competition with each other. While Peter’s successes at MoMA were compounded by the string of exhibitions for which he is still known, everything seemed to be on track. The family lived well, in a large apartment at 333 Central Park West (see Fig. 13). But something was lacking in the area of close personal relationships. Peter and Thalia socialized with couples well known in art and literary circles, among them Lionel and Diana Trilling. But whereas Thalia was willing to enjoy these friendships at face value, Peter felt a distance.

  Despite their active social life—museum events, art receptions, dinners—Peter feels to this day that they had few “real” friends in New York.35 The exceptions were Bill Seitz and Dore Ashton. These two were his best friends in New York, and Ashton has remained in Peter’s close circle. As for Seitz, there is much to learn from their working relationship at MoMA and what Peter understood to be a close friendship.36 Their association began well. Much later Thalia, speaking to Peter, recalled: “You really ranked [thought highly of] them, you wanted to get a duplicate of that closeness—a substitute for family.” Peter did not disagree: “That’s right. And you felt close to them too. You remember the time we were out at Princeton and Bill was taking mescaline? T
hat brought me closer to him.”37 The incident he refers to, a visit with Bill and Irma Seitz at their Princeton home, reveals a very sixties aspect of their social interaction. The mescaline, he explains, was an “informal experiment.” On this occasion, he and the two women observed Bill with considerable curiosity as he experienced a mescaline high. A week or two later, Peter was scheduled to conduct the same “experiment” in the same company. But the second event never took place.

  It was not just his social life that failed to satisfy Selz. His domestic life had also frayed into disorder. There are ample clues as to where things went wrong between husband and wife. Sadly, Thalia’s ability to recall the past was stolen from her by Alzheimer’s disease. She lived out her last years in a Long Island care facility and died in early 2010. During that time she was visited regularly by younger daughter Gabrielle. Gaby, as friends and family call her, lives in Southampton not far from the Hampton Care Center, where her once strikingly beautiful mother, an accomplished writer of short stories who by her former husband’s admission helped him significantly with his own writing, spent her final days. Nonetheless, Thalia contributes to this biography through the gift of analog recording technology and taped conversations. Ten cassettes recorded in 1993 and 1994, provided by Gabrielle, give her a compelling presence as an intelligent and knowledgeable individual, though one held captive by anger and bitterness.

  Although the Peter and Thalia story, their seventeen years together, began as an intellectually stimulating and personally fulfilling relationship,38 he had one serious weakness: an inability to limit himself to one partner. This probably was the deal breaker for Thalia, who, as Peter’s Pomona faculty colleague and good friend Charles Leslie put it, was “almost insanely jealous.” In the end, Peter’s infidelity was, as later wives discovered, one of the unspoken and nonnegotiable terms of being married to him.