Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-To-Reel Collection “Museum of One's Own?”, 1988 [00:00:00] but Also, the Kinds of Controve

Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “Museum of One’s Own?”, 1988

HILTON KRAMER [00:00:00] But also, the kinds of controversies: illegal, moral, polemical, aesthetic that, in past years, raged around the history of Bonds, his collection, and his foundation and museums will know that all of the attitudes that have come to be directed toward collectors who establish museums, have long ago been played out. That is the idea that there’s nothing but vanity involved; the idea that establishing a museum is nothing but a kind of ego trip. In the case of Bonds, he had very specific ideas [00:01:00] about what art should be, what it was, what it wasn’t. He wrote books about art; terrifying thing to think of collectors doing (laughter). He established a school, which probably even the over-reaching contemporary collector would hesitate to do. He invited such intellectual eminences as Bertrand Russell and John Dewey to come and advise him. I think I’m quite safe in the assumption that neither was interested in art. In any case, for the Bonds Foundation from the Frick Collection, from the Phillips Collection in Washington, about which one of our panelists will speak this evening, these collections [00:02:00] around which certain controversies and attitudes have accreted over the years, nonetheless have a way of becoming of becoming favorite collections and favorite museums. We know from the example of Bonds in particular, that the people who established them are not always the most lovable types (laughter), but the one thing that can be said for Bonds was that when it came to art, he delivered. I suppose the question that’s on the minds of many people when they hear about collectors establishing museums is, can they deliver? Well, I thought we would begin this evening with [00:03:00] Laughlin Phillips, the director of the Phillips Collection. Since, in the discussion this evening, the Phillips Collection looms as the historical precedent. I think I don’t exaggerate when I say that it is one of the museums that is most beloved by people who really care about art, rather than all the things that accumulate around art. I will, by way of introduction, only tell one story about Duncan Phillips, whom I cannot claim to have known but whom I met on one remarkable occasion in the mid ’50s when I went down to Washington. I was then the editor of Arts Magazine; I went to Washington because I was doing some work on Bonnard and it wasn’t all that easy in those days to see a lot of [00:04:00] paintings by Bonnard. In fact, it isn’t all that easy today. I knew what the holdings at the Phillips Collection were, and being a little innocent about those matters then, I just went to Washington and assumed they would all be hanging in some public space. When I go out there, I was rather dismayed to find that there wasn’t a single Bonnard on exhibition. So, I went to see a woman sitting behind a desk, told her what my mission was, and asked her if I could have access to the store-rooms where the Bonnards must surely be. She looked very embarrassed and she said, “Well, if I would just take a few minutes to look at other paintings, she would look into the matter.” Then, as I was standing [00:05:00] in the foyer of the old building trying to decide whether anything was gonna come of this visit, I saw this car pull up and the driver get and open the back door, and this very tall, elegant man, unmistakably Duncan Phillips, walk into the museum. This woman went to him and whispered something to him, and he came up to me and said, “Young man, I understand you’ve come to see our Bonnards.” I said, “Well yes I have,” and he said, “Well, in order to do that, you’ll have to come home to lunch with me (laughter) because they’re all hanging in my living room (laughter) at the moment. Now, that’s the other side of having, as it were, your own museum. I did go home to lunch with Duncan and Marjorie Phillips. It was one of the most [00:06:00] extraordinary days of my life. I did get to see the Bonnards, but what made an even greater impression on me was the Braque still life from the late ’20s that was hanging on the wall opposite my place at the lunch table. I had great difficulty

Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 1 of 18 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “Museum of One’s Own?”, 1988 getting the food on my fork from the plate to my mouth because I couldn’t quite figure out where my mouth was (laughter). I had never had lunch with a Braque still life before. It’s another side of the whole enterprise of a collector having his own museum; a story, which in this case, I think has had a happy ending though not an uncomplicated one, and about that I’ll call on Laughlin Phillips to tell us a bit more.

PANETLISTS Over here.

HILTON KRAMER I’m sorry.

LAUGHLIN PHILLIPS Thank you. [00:07:00] I want to hasten to point out that it was possible then to have paintings at home, but under the new (laughs) tax law that is no longer possible. Because even then, it was a public museum, public institution, a foundation, and that’s considered self-dealing under the present law, but my father made a great point of living with the paintings that eventually entered the Collection. He would test them in good company and live them for a week or two. Very often he would ask the galleries to send them down on approval and they wouldn’t go to the museum, they’d go to his home and be put in different places next to tough company. If they survived that, then they might get bought. But, I wanna clarify one point about this evening’s topic in relation to the Phillips, it’s a rather unique institution, in that, it is not a case of a [00:08:00] collector converting his collection into a public institution, into a museum. In fact, the idea of the museum came first and then the collection. If I could, just for a moment, recite how that happened. He had gone through Yale as an— been trained in writing and in fact found himself, in the 10 or 15 years after college, increasingly writing about art. He felt that he somehow was able to interpret what artists were doing in a way that the public could appreciate. He and his brother started in a very modest way to collect, a few paintings prevailing on their father and mother to let them do it. I suppose in 1918, they together had two dozen paintings [00:09:00] and in that year, my father lost both his father and his brother, plunged into depression, and had this feeling that he wanted to establish a memorial to them, but in a very constructive way. He also was imbued with the sense of public service. So, he conceived this idea, which pulled him out of the depression, of founding a museum, which then would permit him to interpret art using the real thing. Of course, he was using his inheritance to do that. So, it is a little different from what we ordinarily think of as a beginning of public collection. He spent the next three years in 1918 to 1921 amassing several hundred paintings and finally opened the [00:10:00] museum in two rooms of the private house, which some of you know, near Dupont Circle in Washington. Then, a few years later, was driven out of the house by having gotten 600 (laughs) paintings and still only two rooms to show them. So, he moved out and the whole house was converted into a museum and kept on collecting at that kind of rate until his death in 1966. He literally poured his life into the museum. In other words, he and my mother were the sole support for some 50 years of the museum, including: acquiring the paintings, paying all the bills, and so forth. He had a very distinct concept. He was very interested in what artists were trying to express in many different ways, but he had this idea that artists see differently. So, it’s a museum with a specific focus; and [00:11:00] although it’s quite eclectic, there are certain points in common. There’s a strong interest in color, there’s a strong interest in expression, there’s a feeling that art somehow enhances life and you should feel good when you look at it. So, he had

Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 2 of 18 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “Museum of One’s Own?”, 1988 almost a missionary zeal along that line. In a sense, it’s a very unique museum, but if I have just one more minute—

HILTON KRAMER Yes. LAUGHLIN PHILLIPS — I think there are certain lessons, nevertheless, to be learned from it in connection with a private person establishing a museum. One, it does require far more money than I think (laughs) people (laughs) realize and including my father. In other words, he put almost all his effort and resources into the collection itself and I know from my tenure there that [00:12:00] there’s a lot more to it, especially in modern times. That museums have become much more evolved, much more professional and that the endowment which he thought was gonna be so adequate, simply has not turned out that way. So, I think any collector considering establishing a museum must really look way down the road, in terms of financing it and making sure it can survive. In the case of the Phillips, we’ve in effect gone much more public than it was originally. Instead of being supported only by the family, it is now just the opposite. It’s about 95 percent supported by the public and by grants. Secondly, I think it really does help for a museum to have a strong purpose, a sense of mission, and to fill some kind of a unique position in a city, particularly where it is. [00:13:00] In that time, in 1921 when it opened to the public in the city of Washington, as you can imagine, there was simply no interest in contemporary art and museums— I guess all over the country— were very academic. So, this did turn out to be the first museum of modern art in the country, and that’s all I have (inaudible).

HILTON KRAMER Thank you. I want to call next on Elaine Dannheisser, the president of the Dannheisser Foundation, who is in the position unusual, although not entirely unusual in this evening’s panel, of being a collector along with her husband on a ambitious scale, who is not going to establish a museum. I think it would be interesting in this context to—

ELAINE DANNHEISSER I might’ve changed my mind.

HILTON KRAMER — hear her on that subject.

ELAINE DANNHEISSER I might’ve changed my mind since I spoke to you on the other day (laughter).

HILTON KRAMER Oh wow! Then, that would be hot off the press news.

ELAINE DANNHEISSER The subject of this evening’s discussion is A Museum of One’s Own. Never. I think it would presumptuous of me to think of our collection as a museum at the present time. At the risk of boring you, I will take a few minutes to tell you a little bit about the history of our collection. My husband and I have been collecting for over 35 years. In 1981, we decided to build a

Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 3 of 18 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “Museum of One’s Own?”, 1988 collection of living artists and emerging artists, which by the way, emerge very quickly and become well known. We knew we wanted to be fully committed by finding a space to house and show the collection. Not for storage, but to be seen. We also used the space for performances, readings, dance, video, and everything related to the visual [00:15:00] arts. I believe it is very important to expose the work of these living artists. Therefore, we open our collection to museum groups and anyone that is interested. We also lend pieces of the collection extensively. That has all happened. The collection has grown, and we do many interesting things at its home on Duane Street. I find it very exciting to experience the creative effort of emerging artists. We feel our collection is still in its infancy and that it would be much too premature to think about its final content and home. The art world is changing so quickly. There are museums being built in the United States, Europe, and Japan, as well as additions to existing museums. I would find it difficult to think about the future of the collection. I just love the involvement of being a part of [00:16:00] what is happening at this very moment.

HILTON KRAMER Thank you, Elaine. Next, I wanna call on Lewis Manilow, who many of you know as a collector on a ambitious scale, but who has chosen to move in a direction that is somewhat different from establishing a museum, but nonetheless in the direction of an institution with public access to the arts.

LEWIS MANILOW Thank you, Hilton. We have of course established a sculpture park outside the city of Chicago, where I live. Hilton said the question is really what does one deliver when doing a [00:17:00] kind of private museum? Let me tell ya, we’re trying to deliver. When we started in the late ’60s, there weren’t that many sculpture parks. So, it was a little bit of a novelty and that was kind of fun; but the place we chose is a prairie. Not the picturesque [Sylvan?] setting. It’s a tough, open prairie on a high point, practically, the high point between Chicago and the Mississippi River. Very windy, a lotta sky, clouds, wind, and weeds. We wanted to do sculpture there that was not established or situated in a picturesque setting, and it was nestled in nature. The influence there was very strongly Mark di Suvero, who had spent a couple of summers with me in my farmhouse, which was in the neighborhood out there. [00:18:00] We tried to figure out ways to put sculpture against that very tough landscape. That meant large pieces; almost every piece there is 30 feet or considerably bigger. Almost every piece there was cited by an artist, so it became part of a living institution. That is to say, each one worked with the other. Some wanted to be apart on the other side totally apart from... Others wanted to be related to the work there. One even, Martin [Puryear?] did a piece, shaped a huge bow and arrow about 300 feet, but at the point of the arrow, he had a chair which he cast so you could see the rest of the park. This was what we are trying to deliver, still are [00:19:00] adding occasionally to. We just put a big piece of Vito Acconci’s to the car piece that was in the basement of the exhibition space at the moment. We brought it out there and it fits well. Acconci’s car [is?] Bruce Nauman’s house, Puryear’s bow and arrow, etc. This is what we’re trying to deliver. It is easier of course than the great Phillips Collection and all the maintenance problems. We have a university there, and I made a deal they would maintain it as long as I would keep delivering the art, they would deliver the maintenance. I think it’s reasonable to assume we can keep it up and add to it as time goes on. The critics and curators, etc. will have to determine whether we’re delivering something special and unique. I’m quite proud of it, and if you come to Chicago I hope you take a look.

Our private collection, the things [00:20:00] we buy and exhibit at our home, in my office, or loft, we do not intend to make into a museum. Maybe I’m running out of time or something.

HILTON KRAMER No, go ahead.

LEWIS MANILOW All the reasons— that’s quite different. I have very different ambitions for that. I think the best of those pictures certainly belong in museums. I want them to be in Chicago museums; I’m a Chicago patriot or chauvinist. I think that that’s where they belong. I owe it to the community that I live in and care about, and that’s what I owe the art world that has been, I must say, very good to me. But, I have another feeling about— you stop me if I’m running over —

HILTON KRAMER Go ahead.

LEWIS MANILOW — I like to think about our pictures being in museums. I love the idea of pictures that we’ve had the privilege of owning, hanging there, competing with, living with the [00:21:00] greatest works of the time and of the past. I mean, that’s my ambition, if I could put it in this very personal way, for them. It is not my ambition to have them sheltered in my place or any other place like that, but it really is to see how they’re gonna last over the centuries. I have high hopes but someone else’ll make that decision.

HILTON KRAMER Thank you. Next, I wanna turn to Eli Broad, who I think many of us here know, has made the fateful move of establishing a museum based on his collection. So, in the case of Eli’s enterprise we can, as it were, hear it from the horse’s mouth.

ELI BROAD Thank you, Hilton. You know, [Edy?] and I really don’t know if we have a museum. We don’t think so, but we’ll [00:22:00] leave it you Hilton and the audience to tell us after the evening’s over. In 1984, the Eli Broad Family Foundation which established for the purpose of building a collection of contemporary art. Art, if you would, of the last decade, art of this decade, and the last quarter of the century, for the purpose of making the collection available as a lending library, if you would, to public institutions: here, abroad, and also to college and university galleries, in addition to museums. It’s been a rewarding and exciting four years and in 1989, we’re gonna continue our function as a lending library for the indefinite future but also, we’re going to become what we tend to call currently a study and research center. So, in a normal sense of the word museum, we don’t think we’re one. [00:23:00] Inasmuch as we’re not open to the general public, but rather our purpose is to be a resource that’s used by public institutions. Now, you might wonder how this foundation got to where it was, and if I have a few minutes, Hilton, I’ll talk about how it evolved because it evolved over perhaps 20 some-odd years. I’ll probably tell you more about how we got to where we’re at, then you wanna hear. First of all, I guess you have to look at myself and I view myself as an entrepreneur who comes from the family of scholars, and most of my cousins are college professors. They tell me I’m the only one that went astray; and by that, they mean I went into business. A funny thing happened in the 30 some-odd

Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 5 of 18 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “Museum of One’s Own?”, 1988 years since I started our company. We were [00:24:00] successful and did very well. In addition to a business career. I’ve always been involved in some sort of political, civic, or educational endeavor. Before the arts, there was higher education. I had once taught. I was chairman of a liberal arts college board of trustees: one at Claremont Colleges and a vice chairman of the state university system in California. So, I always had an interest in things outside of our lovely family and outside of the world of business. About 20 years ago, I followed the first collector in our family, which was Edy, into collecting. She claims the acquisition budget went up modestly when I became interested, and I guess it’s true. I and Edy have been involved in three collections: a personal collection, which started at the first part of the century; our company started a [00:25:00] corporate collection 10 years ago, which is a collection of Southern California art by artists who are not prominent prior to the ’70s. We’ve enjoyed doing that; our employees, our customers enjoy it, and lastly, the foundation. As you might tell by now, I do few things in moderation. I think really collecting became more than a passion, maybe an addiction to me. In the mid-’70s, I’d like to say my innocence as a collector ended when I got involved in public institutions. First, at the LA County Museum; and then about decade ago in 1979, I was the founding chairman of the Museum of Contemporary Art, and served in that capacity for six years and had the privilege of using my entrepreneurial skills and whatever fundraising skills I had, with others to start [00:26:00] something I’m very proud of. I enjoy doing that and remain a very active trustee. I serve on a number of public institution boards including: The Archives of American Art, the Baltimore Museum, and several others. So, you might wonder, “Well, why do a foundation? Why have a space? Why have a collection outside of public institutions?” Let me try to answer that. As an entrepreneur, I think I like to perceive needs and try to fill the needs I perceive. My perception through involvement at the LA County Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, in looking at a number of institutions, was that there was in fact an unfulfilled need that goes something like this in my mind. I think it is difficult for most museums to build a contemporary collection in the current market. [00:27:00] It’s difficult for them to buy the best contemporary art, and there are many reasons for this. One is, we all know the market is very hot, and if you think of the museum staff and acquisitions committee or a board of trustees, responding to what I call the speed of the market, it’s a very difficult endeavor. It’s difficult for most museums to get adequate funding these days for their operations and for exhibitions; and what happens? The acquisition budget suffers. I’ve also found a number of artists who have not been very happy seeing their works go to museums that do not have enough wall space, and they’re delighted to be listed in the collection. But, when they see their work on display once in five years for a month, they’re not too happy about it. So out of that, I saw an opportunity. The need for [00:28:00] creating, if you would, a lending library of contemporary art that would help more than one museum. That’s what we’re trying to do. As I said, in ’84 we formed the foundation, we’re building a collection of art of the last quarter of the century by artists, by the way, who are not prominent prior to the mid-’70s. We hope to continue doing that indefinitely. I reflect on the fact in the year 2000, I’ll be 67 and maybe we’ll continue to then in this endeavor, maybe we won’t. The last three years, let me tell you what our foundation has done. We’ve lent about 155 works to 90 institutions here and overseas. They been either individual works, small groups, or in one occasion, 40 works to one museum. [00:29:00] In addition to building a collection, our family and the foundation also support public institutions by an occasion, buying major works for their collection. In the last two years, we bought 10 works for six museums: the Met, the Whitney, Chicago Art Institute, the Tate, the High Museum, MOCA, and the LA County Museum. That was our beginning.

Recently, we thought about expanding our mission, if you would, from being simply a lending library, which we wanna continue, to becoming a 1989 the future, what you might call, a study or research center. The way this came about was by the foundation acquiring an old building; old in Los Angeles means 1927.

HILTON KRAMER (laughs)

ELI BROAD A building that’s four stories, twenty-five thousand square feet. There was a telephone switching [00:30:00] station, which meant it had very high ceilings. We’re recycling or re-fitting the building currently. It’s gonna be a facility that will contain the foundation offices, a library, storage space, wall space for 80 or 90 works. We expect to complete that by year end. Our present intent is to continue to do exactly what we’re doing to year 2000, and eventually donate the collection to one or several institutions. Whether we have a museum now or not, I leave for you and the panel to help me.

HILTON KRAMER Thank you. Now, I’d like to turn to Mrs. Holladay, the president of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, which was recently established in Washington, [00:31:00] and which I think can fairly be described— and if it’s not a fair description, I’m sure she’ll correct me— as the only recently established museum that has set itself a very specific political goal as its raison d'être. Is that a fair description of your enterprise Mrs. Holladay?

WILHELMINA HOLLADAY I’m not sure (laughter). Oh, we just start? Well, I’m delighted to have this opportunity to tell how the museum came about because I know that some of the things that have been written about it have really not been factual. My husband and I years ago in doing research on a given woman artist, discovered that there were no women in the sourcebooks [00:32:00]. That motivated us to begin a collection that would attempt to show the contribution of women to the history of art; this was in the ’60s. By the ’80s— we’ve traveled all over the world, we had a great deal of professional help and guidance— we had put together a collection of several hundred works. We decided that we had proved beyond any doubt that there was an additional dimension to the history of art that wasn’t included in the books. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t one single woman still in Janson’s History of Art that was being used as a general throughout the country; not even Mary Cassatt. So, we decided to give the collection away where people who were interested might go and study. At that point Nancy Hanks [00:33:00] and some other professionals who had helped us, people who’d been interested came and said, “Please don’t give the collection away. There are all these wonderful museums, but they are for the [chronology?] of art, Western art, contemporary art, and they’ll show the collection as a temporary exhibition, but then it will be dispersed. The statement that we have worked hard to make will be lost.” So, we conducted a feasibility study. I was on the board of the Corcoran and Peter Marzio was then the director, and we went and asked his opinion. He said, “This is something that the Corcoran could never focus on, and yet I feel it’s very important and should be done. I don’t think it conflicts with any other museum, and I will help you,” and he did. We went to Al Lerner at the Hirshhorn, who was then the director of the Hirshhorn, and he said something comparable [00:34:00] and gave us a beautiful letter of endorsement. [Harry Lowe?],

Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 7 of 18 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “Museum of One’s Own?”, 1988 who was the acting director of the National Museum of American Art at the time, came on our committee and was wonderfully helpful. With Nancy’s help, we put together a very prestigious committee of people: [Barbara Novak?] from Columbia, [Louise Nevelson?], [Adelyn Breeskin?], [Mary Lasker?], and many others. We were doing some educational projects, sort of museum without walls; assembling a category of works by women throughout the country in private and public collections, that sort of thing. One of the women on the committee, a young woman, who became very interested came and said, “You know, I think we should have a building, and I’d like to at least begin that,” and gave a million-and-a-half dollars. Mike [Ainslie?] was on our committee, he was head [00:35:00] of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and he found a beautiful landmark building near the White House, main metro stop, walking distance to other major museums, near the Convention Center, in an area of the city that was ripe for urban renewal. The woman who had given the money, who wishes to be anonymous, was very excited about the building. We used a portion of it to tie up the building to see if we could raise money, and the rest for a challenge grant; and we were very successful. Since that time, we have purchased and restored the building. We decided right at the beginning that it had to be a national museum truly and not a Washington museum. We have a very broad- based constituency. We have [00:36:00] over 95 thousand members who have either become a member or given money in some way to the museum. They come from every state and 25 countries. We have over a hundred corporations that have helped us substantially. We’ve always had a board; I am president of the board, but we have a rotating board and in another two years, I will rotate off the board, with a wonderful woman coming along who will be president— god willing. I have never felt it was (laughs) a museum of my own. As a matter of fact, our members identify so closely with us that when they come, they talk about our museum. I mean, it’s really wonderful, the sort of enthusiasm. They are pleased with what we’re doing I think because I’ve been told at least that we have the highest renewal rate of membership in the country [00:37:00]. So, in spite of the claims by other people that the Holladays (laughs) bought themselves a museum, which I was amused to read in Time Magazine, it was not my idea to have a museum. It was not our money. We did give our collection and our library, and I worked very, very hard as president of the board, and I’m totally committed to what I’m doing. It’s been marvelously rewarding. When Mr. Kramer says it’s a political focus, I’m not so sure that he’s correct because the whole ambition of the museum was through highlighting, through exhibitions programming, and publishing, to heighten the awareness of the accomplishments of women, so that they would be included in major collections, in major museums and be exhibited more frequently. [00:38:00] I think perhaps we’re achieving that, and that’s very exciting to us. For the first time in the Metropolitan Museum’s history, over 130 years or however old they are, they have never had an exhibition of a woman artist and they’re having one. It’s opening at the end of this year, Georgia O’Keeffe. For the first time, the National Gallery of Art has had two shows by women: Berthe Morisot and Georgia O’Keeffe. We don’t claim credit for this exactly, but we do think that by heightening the awareness, that some wonderful things are happening. So, we have a long way to go, and we’re working very, very hard. It is a rewarding experience, but I don’t claim to be the founder. A title has been given me by the media; we have 480-some people who have given over $5000 and [00:39:00] call themselves of the museum. Thank you.

HILTON KRAMER Thank you. Before going on to some more general questions, I thought I might just take up an issue that Mrs. Holladay raised in talking about the membership of the National Museum of

Women in the Arts. Of the 95 thousand members that you mentioned, would you care to hazard a guess as to how many of those members are members because their interests are primarily in art, against the number whose interests are primarily in the politics of the feminist movement?

WILHELMINA HOLLADAY I think I can answer it very accurately because we have a profile of our membership that we’ve had two studies made; and it’s very interesting to me. [00:40:00] Now this doesn’t really reflect all the people that come to our museum because younger people don’t have the money to give, but we’ve had two studies made. Our average member: is 50 years old, makes over 50 thousand dollars a year, is extremely well educated, is very interested in the arts and subscribes to our magazines, is Jewish, we have more Jewish people than gentiles, which didn’t surprise me because I think Jewish people have always been very sensitive to the arts and supportive of the arts. Well, that’s all I can think of right now. Oh, and 70 percent are women and 30, men. Now, I really don’t know how many of those 70 percent women are feminists, but [00:41:00] as you get into something like —

HILTON KRAMER It’s likely that quite a few of them are however (laughter).

WILHELMINA HOLLADAY It’s likely.

HILTON KRAMER (laughs) Yes.

WILHELMINA HOLLADAY Yet the feminists, the really active feminists, were the ones who were our greatest critics because we didn’t take on—

HILTON KRAMER You were insufficiently militant, yes (laughter). Well—

WILHELMINA HOLLADAY I guess that’s the reason.

HILTON KRAMER — I want to turn, as a more general question—

AUDIENCE Boo! Boo! Boo! (laughter)

HILTON KRAMER You’ll be welcome to raise your questions at the appropriate time, but it’s nice to have your sentiments expressed.

AUDIENCE [Boo or Woo?]

HILTON KRAMER I take it that’s an expression of feminist sentiment (laughter) rather than aesthetic interest. I think all of the enterprises we’ve heard described tonight, whether they can technically be described as new museum or not, [00:42:00] take place in the context of existing institutions. Laughlin Phillips mentioned the situation in Washington and indeed the country at large when Duncan Phillips established the Phillips Collection as a museum, that is, there were no existing institutions that paid any attention to twentieth-century art. That, of course, has changed to say the least. I think it is a question on the minds of many people as to why it should be so difficult for collectors who want to move into the public sphere in whatever ways [00:43:00] that might be possible, why it has proved so difficult so often to form a workable attachment to existing institutions. In the case of Mr. Manilow, there’s the great Art Institute of Chicago, there’s the Museum of Contemporary Art that’s been much involved with. In the case of Mr. Broad, there are the institutions that he's mentioned that he has been involved with, and yet he’s chosen to operate outside that sphere. In the case of Elaine Dannheisser, you’re in a city in which there are really an extraordinary number of existing institutions that however well or badly they perform the function, lavish a great deal of their budget, their staff, their energy, their time on paying attention to new art. What was it that [00:44:00] made it seem more desirable to establish your own foundation with your own agenda, rather than come under the administrative or spiritual umbrella, as it were, of—

ELAINE DANNHEISSER Well, for me, I wanted my own autonomy. Once you’re under the umbrella, I’m sure there has to be something. There it becomes very bureaucratic.

HILTON KRAMER Yes.

ELAINE DANNHEISSER [Which is?] very simple.

HILTON KRAMER Lou, would you wanna say something about that? After all, you’ve, in a sense, worked both sides of the street, both as an independent operator and as somebody who’s very much involved in Chicago’s art institutions.

LEWIS MANILOW Well, I think what we’re trying to do is non-institutional in a sense. I mean, you’re not gonna put a prairie in downtown Chicago and then put some sculpture at the top of it and have— what we have is about almost a square mile out there. So, I think unusual circumstances [00:45:00] provoke unusual responses, or unusual desires at least. (laughs) If I may Hilton, I wanna say a good word for a couple of private museums. Most of us here are saying, “Well, it’s a little different,” but I think a lot of the private institutions have done yeoman’s service for the art of our time. I think Saatchi’s [done it?] in London. I think the idea that a man with all those pictures will put ’em up and allow us to see ’em, I think that’s marvelous. I think it’s educated a lot of us, for good or for bad, but I think he’s amazing. I think [Schaffhausen?] in Switzerland is a pearl and absolute jewel of a small group of presumably unknown people who have put together this collection, and I must say it’s one of the most moving experiences in contemporary

Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 10 of 18 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “Museum of One’s Own?”, 1988 art. I think what [Norton Simon’s?] done with all the background (laughs) that we all know about, and all of the clumsiness and uncomfortable things, I was [00:46:00] prepared to hate that but he has done such magnificent works of art. Bless those people out there who in their own, very personal, non-bureaucratic, idiosyncratic ways have given a lot of art to a lot of us, and I think that’s terrific. Doesn’t happen to be my choice, except in this very unusual situation, but I’ve enjoyed it immensely and I think whether or not they last, maybe Saatchi’s work and maybe Schaffhausen’s work will end up in Zurich and Saatchi would rather give it all to Tate, that’s fine too. But, I think while we’re passing through, we’re getting a lot of pleasure out of them.

HILTON KRAMER Well, I haven’t heard anybody attack the idea yet, but it’s nice to have the attack (break in audio).

ELI BROAD And his alone to make.

HILTON KRAMER Lou, would you care to comment about the situation as you see it?

LEWIS MANILOW I think part of it’s simply a result of the boom in contemporary art. In [00:47:00] lots of places around the world, there is very little room in existing institutions to take the kind of art that certain people are now interested in. I don’t know if the Tate would’ve taken Saatchi’s collection. I doubt very much that it’s possible for them to have accommodated the 10 percent or 5 percent of what Saatchi was giving away. I know the same was true in Schaffhausen where there was just no museum in Switzerland. People have a passion for committing themselves to certain periods art; particularly now, contemporary art. They wanna collect it, and there is not going to be room, at least not now, in most institutions for this kind of extensive collection. Curators properly— and I support them in this— should not say, “Oh, that’s terrific! Give us all your i— we’ll add a wing.” I think that’s premature. I think we’ve seen some instances where they did that and they’re a little [00:48:00] chance-y. I think it’s better that those people that can afford it say, “Look, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna create an alternative museum. I’m gonna create my museum, my taste,” as (inaudible) says. “This is the stuff. I believe in it, come and look.” Maybe hopefully, as I think I said earlier, as time goes on and history [occurs?], critics etc. say yes or no, that a lot of that will in fact— probably edited down— belong in an institution. I think that’s a healthy process frankly.

HILTON KRAMER On this subject Laughlin, I wonder if so far as you know any larger museum ever approached your father about absolving the Phillips Collection into a larger institution. Was that ever an issue?

LAUGHLIN PHILLIPS Yes, it was. My father was on the first board of the National [00:49:00] Gallery— and I think that there was some feeling that it would’ve been proper for him to turn it over to them. Like some of the collectors we’re hearing about, he felt that he had created brick-by-brick a unit of

Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 11 of 18 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “Museum of One’s Own?”, 1988 something that he was very proud of. He didn’t want to have a room here, have it shown part of the time, and have it skimmed. He wanted it to stay intact.

HILTON KRAMER Well, speaking for myself, I’ve never met anybody who expressed any regret that Phillips Collection wasn’t at the National Gallery or that the Frick Collection wasn’t at the Met. I think that’s a rather universal feeling, but it is interesting that, that was an issue that early on.

ELAINE DANNHEISSER For myself, our collection just mushroomed and then I said, “Well we have to find a space so [00:50:00] that we can enjoy it, even if it isn’t in our home. We can go down there and have our friends and anyone else that is interested in seeing it. We are lucky enough to be able to hang a lot of the work, but it will never, as I said before, be a museum. It’s just an extension of our home.

HILTON KRAMER Well, have there been existing museums who have pursued you to—

ELAINE DANNHEISSER No.

HILTON KRAMER No?

ELAINE DANNHEISSER No.

HILTON KRAMER I think it will begin after tonight (laughter). Yes.

MALE 1 Will the panel here comment on the practice of important collectors donating their collections to existing institutions. [Should?] collections be hung together if and when you know that your collection is— Mr. Manilow, Mr. Broad, do you impose such a condition on the museum? Do you think that museums should accept collections with that condition attached to it?

HILTON KRAMER The question is what do the panelists think of the [00:51:00] practice of collectors insisting as a condition of donating their collection to a museum, that the collection be exhibited intact as a collection rather than be absorbed into the general classifications of museum collection itself? Eli?

ELI BROAD Yeah, I think that’s the very that is the greatest issue between collectors and institutions and that’s why when that issue remains unresolved as it often is, people go out and do their own thing, whether it’s your own museum or whatever. I do not believe responsible large public institutions should agree to such a condition. Perhaps, they might agree to show the collection as unit for x number of days a year or every other year, but simply building a wing and separating

Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 12 of 18 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “Museum of One’s Own?”, 1988 that collection from other things within that museum’s collection, [00:52:00] I think, is bad for the museum and is bad for the world of art.

HILTON KRAMER Anyone else care to comment?

LEWIS MANILOW Oh, I agree, I agree. I think that the dialogue between the pictures is much richer if you can—

ELI BROADIntegrate.

LEWIS MANILOW — you let the curators hang ’em. They’ll make mistakes, we all make mistakes, but I think rigidity is a real enemy. Once in a while (laughter) it’s nice to see ’em hang together, I must admit, because it gives you a historical view. But, as the audience said, 90 percent of the time it shouldn’t be allowed.

HILTON KRAMER Yes.

FEMALE 1 (inaudible)

HILTON KRAMER I’m sorry can you stand. I can’t hear you.

FEMALE 1 Last week, we heard from museum directors about the kinds of impositions and inhibitions that public policy and tax policy make on people who would like to contribute to the museum, would like to set up public access to their art. I wonder if you all could speak to that a little bit. What inhibitions do you [00:53:00] find now that certain tax laws, public policy does make it more difficult? Also, I just wanna speak for myself, (inaudible) (laughter).

HILTON KRAMER You’re asking what in the existing tax laws or other legal issues—

FEMALE 1 [But also on the flipside of that?] (inaudible)—

HILTON KRAMER — act as obstacles to giving the public greater access to... Yes.

FEMALE 1 On the flipside, what can public policy do to make it easier for you all to make artwork available?

HILTON KRAMER Lou, would you—

LEWIS MANILOW I don’t know—

HILTON KRAMER — since you’re a lawyer you might want to address that question.

LEWIS MANILOW — access, I mean, these private museums are public help. There’s more museums, there’s more access. I don’t—

HILTON KRAMER Are the current tax laws more favorable to establishing a museum of one’s own today or less favorable?

LEWIS MANILOW Well, you could make the donation, and since the tax laws are now at 30 percent instead of the 70 percent [00:54:00] level, it’s less of a tax deduction, but I don’t think that matters that much, frankly. I’m not one that bemoans the loss of tax benefits. I really think most people, most serious collectors, are in it more for the art than the deductions. I think that’s the way it should be. I think that’s much healthier, that’s much better policy. In the long run that’s salient, I have no complaints at the moment over tax laws or anything like that. I think we just gotta do our job in collecting and in donating. I spend a lot of time as Eli does on the other side, I’ve been president of the Contemporary Museum of Chicago for a number of years, and I went out and hustled pictures like everybody else. By-and-large, it wasn’t taxes that ever stopped us from getting pictures.

ELI BROAD Well, the lady has a point, directors are correct. It is harder [00:55:00]. There’s less economic benefit to a giver, the collector, giving a painting to a museum today than there was several years ago because you cannot take the depreciated value the way one did. At lower rates, there’s less economic benefit, so that’s why we’re hearing these complaints from our brethren in the museum world.

HILTON KRAMER Of course, there was a kind of unacknowledged paradox, if not contradiction, in last week’s discussion among the museum directors and curators, insofar as they were universally lamenting the fact that the financial prospects they faced for their institutions because of tax law and because of other matters, were grimmer and grimmer and grimmer, at the same time they were all expanding like mad (laughter) asking for even greater expansion in the future. Imposing thereby [00:56:00] vastly new expenses for their institutions in a situation that if we had to believe them by their own description as getting grimmer and grimmer. So, maybe it’s some future occasion we might want to explore that paradox.

MALE 2 You say they’ve been getting back to this issue of private versus public is [a retort?] for museums. [You seem to think that they’re strongly against public support?]. I just wondered if

Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 14 of 18 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection “Museum of One’s Own?”, 1988 you’re so much in favor of the arts and people being able to go to their local museum (inaudible) and so forth, why are you so opposed to the public tax monies paying for that?

HILTON KRAMER Well actually— the question is why am I so opposed to public money going into museums and into art? Well actually, I am not. I’m not opposed to it. What am I opposed to is the [00:57:00] disguise that is often in indulged in by the professional art world, that tries to mislead people into thinking that there’s not an issue there. That is, it is an issue. It is an issue when, if it turned out that private collectors, by establishing museums or foundations of their own, were laying the foundation for future expenses on the public treasury without anybody in the government, least of all, voters and taxpayers electing to incur those expenses. I mean, that is the issue. It’s not that I’m against public support of museums. Far from it; I spend my whole life promoting the interest of museums, among many other things. But, I do [00:58:00] think that there is an issue here of honesty, as it were, truth in packaging (laughter). A great deal of the— if I may say so— politics of recent years has really come about through the public revolt against having these concealed expenses imposed upon them without anybody being in a position to actually say, “Yes I’ll vote for that.” I’m all for the museums getting whatever money they can get, but last week’s panel gave me pause in terms of the lament about the money drying up. Now of course, more money’s going into museums and every (inaudible) in the history of civilization, and five museum people last week talked about the money drying up. At the same time, they’re building and asking for additions that are going to increase their budget by millions. Now, that’s not truth in [00:59:00] packaging.

ELI BROAD Well do you have truth in packaging, let’s say, in higher public education then? Or any other cultural educational resour—

HILTON KRAMER But Eli, that’s a subject of another panel (laughter).

ELI BROAD Well, alright.

HILTON KRAMER I think we have time for one more question. Yes.

FEMALE 2 [I think you’ve already mentioned it?], but do you think you can do a better job of selling collectors the idea of giving their collections to public institutions? How specifically should we do that? (inaudible)

ELI BROAD I think they’ve done a good job, but could do— did you wanna repeat the question?

HILTON KRAMER No, I think the question’s (inaudible).

ELI BROAD

I think they’ve done a good job but could do a better job. One, by getting collectors to feel some sense of obligation to the institution, to looking at the collector’s ego and other needs in endeavoring to fulfill them, and just have a better dialogue over a longer period of [01:00:00] time. Getting collectors more involved in museum activities. I think it was Grace [Gluck?] wrote an article about a year ago, Lou, on collecting collectors.

LEWIS MANILOW (laughs)

ELI BROAD That’s what museums have to do. Museums cannot afford to compete for contemporary work today with limited acquisition budgets and a hot art market. So, rather than seeking individual works— and I think that Grace was right, you gotta collect collectors, which is a very different activity— and get the collections into public institutions.

HILTON KRAMER Well, of course, I came up with the proposal at a discussion at the Met last fall that nobody took seriously and that is, I think we should consider a ten-year moratorium on museums collecting new art and let the collectors—

ELI BROAD Fight it out.

HILTON KRAMER — write the checks because the art has nowhere to go eventually but into the museums anyway.

ELI BROAD Exactly.

HILTON KRAMER Why should—

ELAINE DANNHEISSER But that’s what we’re trying to do.

HILTON KRAMER No, I’m all for it, [01:01:00] but why should the museums be killing themselves trying to raise money for these over-priced pictures (laughter), when if they just sat back for 10 years, they’re all gonna fall into their lap anyway (laughter)?

ELAINE DANNHEISSER Exactly. If you look at the history, the life-cycle of an important work of art from the time it’s done and what happens to it in 50 years, probably 70 percent ends up at public institutions. Well, people like Lou and myself and other collectors write the checks.

LAUGHLIN PHILLIPS Right.

LEWIS MANILOW But in the meantime, in that 10 year gap there are a lot of people who are not collectors who like to see art, and there ought to be a place for them to see it. Now, I don’t care if the general museums choose not to. There is another whole group of contemporary museums. I know all of us— I can speak for everyone here, I’m sure on the panel— in Chicago, we get [01:02:00] requests for groups to come through my loft once a week at least. It’s sometimes a pain but usually a pleasure, to accommodate people who really seem to care.

HILTON KRAMER Well, we’re not suffering from a dearth of access to new art.

LEWIS MANILOW Under your proposal we might be, you see.

LAUGHLIN PHILLIPS Ohhh.

LEWIS MANILOW If you say that no museum should collect anything from [next?] or last 10 years—

HILTON KRAMER Well, I didn’t say that they shouldn’t show it, they just shouldn’t buy it.

LEWIS MANILOW Oh (laughter). Well, that’s not [impossible?]

HILTON KRAMER I think we’ve come to the end of our time. I remind you of next week’s panel: Black Monday and the Art Market. The moderator will be Milton Esterow, the editor and publisher of Art News, the only magazine oddly enough in which it is forbidden to mention my name (laughter), at least this side of the iron curtain. I hope somebody in the audience next week will ask [01:03:00] Mr. Esterow why he’s done what in Hollywood they call a “blacklist” (laughter). I’d be curious about the answer. Thank you very much.

ELAINE DANNHEISSER You’re terrific.

HILTON KRAMER Thank you. Thank you.

WILHELMINA HOLLADAY It was great.

END OF AUDIO FILE 9009492_01_AB-Museum-of-Ones-Own.mp3

Museum of One's Own? / Hilton Kramer, Eli Broad, Elaine Dannheisser, Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, Lewis Manilow, Laughlin Phillips, 1988/10/11. Reel-to-Reel collection. A0004. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York