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San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Regional Oral History Office 75th Anniversary The Bancroft Library Oral History Project University of California, Berkeley SFMOMA 75th Anniversary HENRY HOPKINS SFMOMA Director, 1966-1972 Interviews conducted by Lisa Rubens and Richard Cándida Smith in 2007 Copyright © 2008 by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Funding for the Oral History Project provided in part by Koret Foundation. ii Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well- informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Henry Hopkins, dated March 12, 2007. This manuscript is made available for research purposes. All copyrights and other intellectual property rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Excerpts up to 1000 words of this manuscript may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and the attribution below is included. Requests for permission or questions should be addressed to SFMOMA Research Library and Archives, 151 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 or [email protected] and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: “SFMOMA 75th Anniversary: Henry Hopkins,” conducted by Lisa Rubens and Richard Cándida Smith, 2006, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; © San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2008. iii Discursive Table of Contents—Henry Hopkins Interview #1: February 6, 2007 Audio File 1 1 Visits to the San Francisco Museum of Art in the 1960s—curating “Thirty-Seven Painters from Los Angeles”—coming as director in 1973—on his decision to change the museum’s name to Museum of Modern Art—on his decision to move the entrance to the museum from McAllister Street to Van Ness Avenue— expanding the museum bookstore—working with architect David Robinson to improve space—starting the Collectors Forum in 1977—taking trustees and donors on museum and art fair trips—expanding the museum’s international connections— Grace McCann Morley—on the relation of California art to New York—on relations with art schools and art departments in the Bay Area—relationship with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco—Ian White—working as a curatorial director—developing new fundraising programs—developing collaborative relationships with museums in other parts of the United States—“War Babies”— bringing artists onto the museum’s board of trustees—the board’s overall profile. Audio File 2 22 Hiring Van Deren Coke—John Humphrey—accessions and exhibition priorities— Glenn Janss—ideas for expanding space—hopes for taking over the entire War Memorial Building—on the Fiftieth Anniversary exhibitions in 1985—the soapbox derby—Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party—the Clyfford Still donation—Philip Guston acquisitions—expanding the board of trustees with members from southern California and Seattle—idea to make SFMOMA a museum of contemporary art serving the entire West Coast region. Interview #2: April 10, 2007 Audio File 3 44 More on Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party—acquiring a major Sam Francis painting— Joseph Cornell—Josef Albers—Carl Djerassi and the Klee donations—more on the board of directors—more on the Fiftieth Anniversary—Robert Arneson—more on the soapbox derby—balancing regional, national, and international exhibitions— comparison of SFMOMA priorities with those of other regional museums. Audio File 4 63 More on relationships with other regional museums—more on hiring Van Deren Coke and expanding the photography program—planning to start an architecture and design program—more on relationship with California artists—Kathan Brown iv and Crown Point Press—on galleries in California—the local press and art critics— escalating costs for basic museum activities—the push towards blockbuster exhibitions—board members from southern California and Seattle leave SFMOMA—on Hopkins’s decision to resign as director—going to UCLA and the Armand Hammer Museum—on curators and staff at SFMOMA during his tenure as director. Interview #3: April 11, 2007 Audio File 5 80 Acquisition priorities for the collection during his tenure—Charles Sheeler’s Aerial Gyrations (1953) and Vertical Building (1934)—Josef Albers’s Study for Homage to the Square series—balancing modern and contemporary in the collection—Knud Merrild—Henri Matisse’s Femme au chapeau (1905)—Douglas MacAgy—the Clyfford Still room—analyzing Still’s Untitled (1951-52) and Untitled (1951)— Philip Guston’s work in the museum collection—defining a West Coast sensibility in modern painting—Guston’s The Tormentors and White Painting I—Franz Kline’s Lehigh V Span (1959-1960)—Jackson Pollock’s Guardian of the Secret (1943). Audio File 6 96 Joan Mitchell—other women painters represented in the modern collection—Sam Francis—Joseph Cornell—collecting in depth—Joan Miró—more on Hopkins’s goal of highlighting a West Coast sensibility in the museum’s collection. 1 Interview #1: February 6, 2007—Los Angeles [Begin Audio File 1 02-06-2007.mp3] Rubens: Well, Henry, why don’t we start formally? It’s a pleasure to be here in your home today. Thank you for inviting me in. I’m interviewing you for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art about your years as director. 01-00:03:47 [material deleted] Rubens: Now, if you would tell me, in just the most brief way, had you been to the San Francisco Museum of Art, as it was called, before you became the director? 01-00:04:59 Hopkins: Yes. I had been there a number of times. Rubens: How would it be that you would come? You were with LACMA, and of course, you went to Texas. 01-00:05:09 Hopkins: Yes, I came from Texas, from Fort Worth’s Art Center Museum, to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I had been in Texas for five years, after leaving LACMA, but I wanted to return to the West. A team of people from San Francisco—David Robinson and others— came down to interview me for that job. I came out to San Francisco and we chatted back and forth for a period of time. They called and said, “Would you be interested in coming?” I said yes. So in 1973, I went. That was that. But you asked about being there before. I had been there before on a number of occasions. It’s very interesting because we had just built the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1965, a big, new building; supposedly a general museum, without undue emphasis on modern and contemporary art; in fact, a very conservative board. But when you would go to San Francisco to see, let’s say, a Diebenkorn show or the annual exhibition which they would do from time to time, every time I would look at it I would think, you know, “If this museum just had a little bit of money to paint their walls white, to do this, to do that, to buy a few key works of art and so forth and so on, it would really be a wonderful place.” It had an attachment, in all of our minds, as a place that had done, in the past, wonderful things, and was still struggling. But it was struggling a lot because of financial difficulties. Rubens: Let me ask you one other question. In your oral history with UCLA, you mentioned that Thomas Albright, the art critic, art historian, also 2 happened to be in Texas, had some kind of encouragement for you coming to the museum. 01-00:06:55 Hopkins: Oh, no, that wasn’t Tom. That was his mentor, Alfred Frankenstein. Rubens: Oh, Alfred Frankenstein. 01-00:07:03 Hopkins: Alfred Frankenstein. This gets long, but at the very beginning of my career, I did an exhibition of Los Angeles artists which came to San Francisco, to the museum in San Francisco. He liked my writing and what have you, and we met and we talked. Alfred was a wonderful old guy. He, in fact, two or three times, put my name in the hopper, I guess in different ways. So he was a factor in that. Right, he played a role. Rubens: I’ll ask you about your exhibit later. How long did it show in San Francisco? 01-00:07:43 Hopkins: Well, it was a normal time; I would say probably about eight weeks. It was a phenomenal thing. It was the first time in the history of universities that a graduate student was allowed to do, for his dissertation, an exhibition rather than a dissertation. I won’t go into all the long detail, but I did it under the mentorship of my leader, Frederick Wight, who was the head of the art galleries at that time, at UCLA.

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