Rogues' Gallery Part 9

Hoving also cultivated potential donors like C. Michael Paul, "a hustler," according to someone who knew him, "complex, and an astute collector, if emotionally shriveled." Paul came to Hoving's attention through Charlie Wrightsman, who lived one door down in Palm Beach. Though some had their doubts about Paul's personal provenance, it would be repeated as fact in his obituaries: A musical prodigy from Outer Mongolia, Paul fought as a Cossack cavalryman in World War I as a teenager and was decorated before being captured by the Germans. He later made his way to America, where he played violin in uniform to sell war bonds, and became a trader in bullion, precious stones, art, and oil. In 1959, he married Josephine Holt Perfect Bay, widow of a pharmaceuticals and oil millionaire who'd been Harry Truman's amba.s.sador to Norway; when her first husband died in 1955, she'd taken over his business interests, his charitable foundation, and his racehorse stable.

Like their neighbors the Wrightsmans, the Pauls sometimes loaned their Palm Beach mansion to President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy; Josephine was an old friend of Joe Kennedy's. But in August 1962, she died, and Paul, who was known as Colonel, though he'd only attained the rank of corporal, took over her foundations and ran them for the next seventeen years. The museum became one of his favorite causes, and in the fall of 1967 the trustees accepted more than $325,000 from him, or rather, from the foundations his late wife had funded, for the purchase of eighteenth-century sculpture. He'd arranged to buy sculptures from Wrightsman, who'd been unable to get them out of France. "Paul got them cheap because they were stuck," says the person who knew him. Paul got them out somehow.

The Met asked no questions. After many more six-figure donations, Paul was named a benefactor and an honorary trustee. He promised millions more to build a garden court and gallery Rousseau would nickname Paul Mall. Unfortunately, he never delivered, and after his death in 1980 his estate ended up in a lengthy legal fracas-"the largest file I've ever seen," says a clerk in Palm Beach probate court-when it turned out he'd mingled corporate, personal, and foundation a.s.sets, including a number of great paintings. Most of these were given to the Met by Paul's sister in the mid-1980s, and Paul's foundation sued the museum, claiming she'd given away its a.s.sets. In a settlement, the Met sold half of the paintings, and now the Paul foundation uses its $7 million share of the proceeds to support education.

Hoving had to stroke existing benefactors as well as new ones. So in July, after annoying Jayne Wrightsman by dithering two weeks over her invitation, he flew to Europe for a cruise with the couple, who felt ignored and had been complaining to Rousseau. "Charlie was puffing up his chest, indicating to Ted that the new director had to suck up," says Hoving. "Which I did on the cruise."

Hoving's account of that trip is a tragicomic masterpiece, beginning with Charlie threatening to leave without them while the Hovings searched for Tom's misplaced pa.s.sport in a Venice hotel. A few days later, Hoving saw his host's scary side when they discussed their children and Wrightsman said his had "turned out badly," blaming "their mother's bad blood." Though "chilled," Hoving decided he had to continue "playing the role of the proper museum toady." Luckily for them, the Six Days' War broke out while they were at sea, and their cruise was cut short.

On board, too, were Katharine Graham, owner of the Washington Post Washington Post, and Cecil Beaton, the prolific photographer, artist, writer, and designer, whom Hoving considered "a living encyclopedia of social small talk."79 In his diaries, Beaton would note Charlie's difficult, bossy personality and Jayne's insistence that since moving to New York, she'd never been happier, though she would twitch whenever Charlie was in a bad mood. In his diaries, Beaton would note Charlie's difficult, bossy personality and Jayne's insistence that since moving to New York, she'd never been happier, though she would twitch whenever Charlie was in a bad mood.

Jayne was defined by her contradictions. In 1966, she and Charlie had been lovingly profiled by Vogue Vogue as the consummate collectors of their age. "Her face is beautiful. The clear, high brow, the serene gaze ... " as the consummate collectors of their age. "Her face is beautiful. The clear, high brow, the serene gaze ... "80 Four years later, Beaton, who'd photographed the Four years later, Beaton, who'd photographed the Vogue Vogue spread, captured a remarkable change. "It is tragic to see how aged she has become," he wrote, "shrunk and wrinkled, and one wonders whether it is worthwhile suffering for so much of her life. Yet if she left him, she could be penniless." spread, captured a remarkable change. "It is tragic to see how aged she has become," he wrote, "shrunk and wrinkled, and one wonders whether it is worthwhile suffering for so much of her life. Yet if she left him, she could be penniless."81 Beaton also captured Hoving's contradictions, his "tremendous physical vitality, gestures, gesticulating ... alert insect eyes ... [a] phenomenon," but also "a non-stop 'show-off,' ruthless to his pathetic wife, a go-getter mixed up in the world of art and high-powered business, a troublesome combination."82 Hoving's effort worked, however; henceforth, Wrightsman, in league with Rousseau, would both scout for and bid on art for Hoving, as he had for Rorimer. Hoving's effort worked, however; henceforth, Wrightsman, in league with Rousseau, would both scout for and bid on art for Hoving, as he had for Rorimer.

Nancy Hoving tolerated the Wrightsmans, but only barely. After she asked them to give to her favorite cause, the drug rehabilitation center Phoenix House, and Jayne replied that they didn't give "to pauper inst.i.tutions," Nancy decided they were a "cold, greedy, selfish pair of racists and fascists" and never sailed on Radiant II Radiant II again. again.83

Conversely, Tom fell hook, line, and sinker for what Beaton called "the milk of luxury" that poured from the pair-and eagerly accepted future invitations on the Radiant Radiant, to Russia, to Palm Beach, to concerts and dinners.84 "I'd become thoroughly seduced by the high life," he admitted. Rousseau, more skeptical, considered Charlie an amusing poseur and Jayne a "brave and somewhat pathetic courtesan." Behind her back, he and Hoving nicknamed her the American Geisha, "both a contrivance and a caricature," who had "sold out to wealth, power and what she realized was going to be the highest rank of society she would ever achieve. He gave her everything she wanted but paid her back constantly by forcing her to attend to his every demand ... Jayne, slim to the point of anorexia with dark hair and knife-like pretty face with crooked little teeth and a mouth slightly askew, had long before given up her fresh good looks," crafting herself into a Jackie Kennedy clone, copying the first lady's hairdo and her girlish, whispery voice. "I'd become thoroughly seduced by the high life," he admitted. Rousseau, more skeptical, considered Charlie an amusing poseur and Jayne a "brave and somewhat pathetic courtesan." Behind her back, he and Hoving nicknamed her the American Geisha, "both a contrivance and a caricature," who had "sold out to wealth, power and what she realized was going to be the highest rank of society she would ever achieve. He gave her everything she wanted but paid her back constantly by forcing her to attend to his every demand ... Jayne, slim to the point of anorexia with dark hair and knife-like pretty face with crooked little teeth and a mouth slightly askew, had long before given up her fresh good looks," crafting herself into a Jackie Kennedy clone, copying the first lady's hairdo and her girlish, whispery voice.85 Hoving says he knew he was worth more to Wrightsman as a tax deduction than as a friend or even an unpaid guide to art. Eventually, the Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal would reveal what Hoving had known since Charlie sued the government in the early 1960s, that for years he had been writing off his $8.9 million art collection and all attendant expenses as an investment, including almost $17 million in insurance and a $10,000 loss on his never-delivered Goya. "He had tried to write off every cheesy little thing because he was an art collector," says Hoving. Finally, in July 1970, a federal court ruled that since they clearly enjoyed and lived with their art, it couldn't be a tax deduction. would reveal what Hoving had known since Charlie sued the government in the early 1960s, that for years he had been writing off his $8.9 million art collection and all attendant expenses as an investment, including almost $17 million in insurance and a $10,000 loss on his never-delivered Goya. "He had tried to write off every cheesy little thing because he was an art collector," says Hoving. Finally, in July 1970, a federal court ruled that since they clearly enjoyed and lived with their art, it couldn't be a tax deduction.86 By then, the Hovings had ceased to be invited-but that put them in good company. Also banished at the same time was Sir Francis J. B. Watson, who'd spent years compiling and editing a lavish five-volume scholarly catalog of the Wrightsman collection, published by the museum (though paid for by Charlie). Rorimer had arranged the deal in 1959, after introducing the couple to Watson, then the leading authority in England on Fine French Furniture. "They fall over for catalogs," Rorimer told the young Hoving, explaining that the lavish books would consecrate the Wrightsmans.

When they met Watson, he was married, but after his wife died in 1969, he came out of the closet as a gay man, adopting his lover, who'd worked for his wife. Society's rule then was that all s.e.xual behavior was acceptable, but only so long as it remained invisible. "Francis was absolutely brazen about the relationship," says John Harris, an architectural historian who was close to him. On a visit to Watson's country home, Charlie and Jayne "saw two sarongs neatly laid out on the bed," says Desmond FitzGerald, the Knight of Glin, another decorative arts collector and friend of Watson's. Though he'd been in their entourage for more than a decade and Jayne had "learned everything from Francis," FitzGerald continues, at Charlie's insistence "Francis was dropped."

WATSON WAS UNPERTURBED, AND H HOVING ALSO DID JUST FINE without his Wrightsman invitations. In 1967, his museum pulled off a coup. The first hint the Met might acquire the ancient Egyptian Temple of Dendur from Nubia came to the executive committee in December 1965, when the Egyptian government offered to give it to America in exchange for help salvaging monuments about to be drowned by the Aswan Dam. The estimated cost of disa.s.sembling Dendur, which Egypt could not afford, was $150,000, and Henry Fischer, the Egyptian curator, felt that if the museum offered to pay it, it could win the prize. The trustees agreed to offer the money if a deal was made within eighteen months. without his Wrightsman invitations. In 1967, his museum pulled off a coup. The first hint the Met might acquire the ancient Egyptian Temple of Dendur from Nubia came to the executive committee in December 1965, when the Egyptian government offered to give it to America in exchange for help salvaging monuments about to be drowned by the Aswan Dam. The estimated cost of disa.s.sembling Dendur, which Egypt could not afford, was $150,000, and Henry Fischer, the Egyptian curator, felt that if the museum offered to pay it, it could win the prize. The trustees agreed to offer the money if a deal was made within eighteen months.

Egyptian art, for so long the focus of the museum's attentions, had fallen out of fashion since the great days of tomb openings when Herbert Winlock and Albert Lythgoe made headlines with their finds. But the tall, dark, and handsome Egyptian curator, Fischer, found a friend in Charlie Wrightsman, who'd just taken a cruise on the Nile, seen the monuments about to be inundated, and asked Fischer if he thought it possible to salvage one for the museum.

Fischer cruised the Nile with his wife in a sailboat in the spring of 1967, all expenses paid by Wrightsman, and fell head over heels for Dendur. Aware that there had been talk of placing the temple on the sh.o.r.es of the Potomac (one Kennedy aide seriously suggested protecting it with an invisible force field), Fischer feared the temple would end up in Washington. But when Congress refused to earmark $12 million for Egypt, he agreed to serve on a committee to raise the money privately. One of the first to respond was Lila Acheson Wallace, the co-chairman with her husband, De-Witt, of Reader's Digest Reader's Digest. DeWitt had no interest in the visual arts, but his wife owned a "first-cla.s.s" Renoir, a "really good" Cezanne, and a Monet, says their lawyer, Barnabas McHenry. Lila's first love, though, was Egypt, an interest inherited from her father, who'd done relief work there after World War I. "She adored Egypt, and she adored Henry Fischer," says Hoving. Her first donations to the Metropolitan were to the Egyptian Art Department.

The battle for Dendur heated up when the Smithsonian chimed in, successfully urging the U.S. Senate to vote funds to save Abu Simbel, one of the monuments most threatened by the dam. As a result, in 1965 Egypt formally offered Dendur to America and began dismantling it-and Fischer despaired that it would go to Washington. But the Johnson administration, mired in Vietnam, didn't make the tiny temple a priority, so early in 1966 Fischer convinced Rorimer to make a bid to erect it in a new wing adjacent to the European galleries at the northwest corner of the museum. In March, the executive committee agreed to reimburse Egypt (then called the United Arab Republic) for the cost of disa.s.sembling Dendur and to meet the conditions set to ensure the temple's safety and place it in an appropriate environment. Lila Wallace sweetened the deal by donating $1 million to save Abu Simbel.

Requests for the temple came from twenty cities, from Phoenix, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Albuquerque, and the appropriately named Memphis and Cairo, Illinois. "Illinois wants to put it on the sh.o.r.es of the Mississippi, the Boston museum wanted to put it on the Charles, there was a movement in New York to put it on the sh.o.r.es of Coney Island because of its proximity to sand, and the Smithsonian was going to put it on a lagoon in Washington," the Parks Department architect Arthur Rosenblatt recalled. Those proposals so offended the scientific-minded Joseph n.o.ble that he launched a campaign to discredit them and approached Hoving, then still at the Parks Department, to ask if the city would pay to enclose it, trumping the Smithsonian. But Washington still wanted it, and the tug-of-war continued.

In the meantime, Hoving moved to the Met and began questioning Rorimer's agenda for museum remodeling and expansion, particularly his plans for redoing the entrance plaza. "The mandate was to finish the plaza for the Centennial in 1970 and also to produce a master plan for the completion of the museum," said Rosenblatt.87 Hoving came up with his plan while sailing off Ma.s.sachusetts that summer. "I got up at about five in the morning one day, first light, and I started writing down what it would take to get the Metropolitan Museum completely finished. I stopped when I had a list of 175 things to do, and when I got back to work a week later, we started on the 175 things."

Hoving wanted to announce it all at once and push it through fast to ensure that it wouldn't be stopped by community activists. Rosenblatt suggested hiring Kevin Roche, the modernist architect Eero Saarinen's professional successor, whom Henry Geldzahler had suggested to Rorimer early in 1966 to design a new American wing. His firm had just finished building a museum and gardens over a highway and multilevel garage in Oakland, marrying nature to structure in a way Rosenblatt greatly admired. In May 1967, Hoving asked the trustees to hire Roche to work not just on the facade but on another comprehensive master plan. Rosenblatt joined the museum staff, and the first renovations began.

Hoving had known Lila Wallace's lawyer, Barnabas McHenry, since their prep school days. When McHenry heard of the plan to rehabilitate the Great Hall and Fifth Avenue facade, he suggested showing it to Wallace, who wanted to finance a project that would beautify New York. Rosenblatt had already won city approvals and a $470,000 subsidy for Roche's plan to renovate the museum's Fifth Avenue entrance with widened steps flanked by oval fountains circled by driveways, to turn it into a monumental terraced plaza, one of New York's greatest public s.p.a.ces. "We gave her a presentation with models you could put your head in and see cardboard figures," Hoving recalls, "and she said, 'How much?' I said, 'Seven million.' She said, 'Send the bills to me, I'll pay them.' " Two days later, McHenry called. "I'm afraid we can't see our way to seven million," he said.

"Why don't you start off with a family membership. Forty-eight dollars a year, and we'll work up from there," Hoving snapped.

"No," said McHenry, "we don't think you're asking for enough. So we're going to give you $10 million." Typically, Hoving is exaggerating. Wallace actually gave $3.6 million to pay for reconstruction of the stairs, facade, and Great Hall, including a $1.1 million endowment to pay for floral displays and upkeep in perpetuity. She soon decided that she would also finance a reinstallation of her beloved Egyptian galleries (earning herself a seat on the board). After that, says Hoving, he had lunch with the "lovely, funny, sweet, bright as h.e.l.l" Wallace every Wednesday at the River Club. "For years, she kept saying she was putting stock away, and n.o.body knew what the stock was worth because it was a privately owned company." Shortly before she died in 1984, she made donation history by giving the Met an income-producing fund filled with Reader's Digest Reader's Digest stock that would be worth $424 million when the company later went public. stock that would be worth $424 million when the company later went public.

Early in 1967, her favorite Egyptologist, Fischer, put together a detailed proposal for the panel judging what was called the Dendur Derby-that is, deciding where the temple would end up-putting n.o.ble's scientific a.n.a.lysis front and center. Hoving had two huge architectural renderings made showing the temple under gla.s.s by day and night. He and Roche would both claim the idea that the temple be placed in a double-layer-gla.s.s vitrine. Roche began designing the wing in January 1969 and within three months was making his first presentations for new Egyptian galleries. Despite the opposition of Jacqueline Kennedy-she wanted it in Washington as a tribute to her husband-the panel decided for the Met.88 Not even the Six Days' War between Israel and Egypt that June, and the subsequent suspension of diplomatic relations with Egypt, could stop Dendur. In the fall of 1967, Fischer went to Cairo to make arrangements, and the Met asked the city for $1.68 million to erect the temple, and by the following February it was being crated-in 660 cases weighing eight hundred tons-for transport from Egypt to New York. It arrived in August. "We housed it in a bubble on the south parking lot," said Rosenblatt. The first air-filled structure ever approved by the building department, the nylon-reinforced vinyl canvas balloon cost $30,000.89

THE YOUNG DIRECTOR WAS ON A ROLL. ATTENDANCE WAS HIGHER than ever in the museum's history except for than ever in the museum's history except for Mona Lisa Mona Lisa. Membership hit an all-time peak, too. Hoving's successor at the Parks Department, August Heckscher, had approved charging admission for special exhibits. In November 1967, engraved cards and letters went out from Arthur Houghton to top donors, inviting them to become sponsors of the centennial for $1,000. Nelson Rockefeller anted up immediately. Brooke Astor would soon give $1 million.

In December 1967, Hoving and Rousseau made headlines when they bought Monet's La Terra.s.se a Sainte-Adresse La Terra.s.se a Sainte-Adresse, a great Impressionist painting, at a London auction for $1,411,200; the seller was a Pennsylvania pastor who'd bought it in 1926 for $11,000. Hoving and Rousseau had rounded up five trustees to pay for most of it (Astor, Joan Payson, Dillon, and Houghton each gave about $200,000, and Minnie Fosburgh kicked in $5,000-the rest came from the Fletcher Fund). It was the third-highest price ever paid for a painting and nearly tripled the record for a Monet, setting off a predictable uproar. A bigger one was in the wings.

The Congress of Racial Equality demanded that Dendur be erected in Harlem or Bedford-Stuyvesant, neighborhoods that needed culture and were ethnically more suitable. But Hoving had other plans for Harlem. In June 1967, he suggested a show called Harlem on My Mind. He saw himself as a proponent of Marshall McLuhan, the media professor whose graphics-stuffed book The Medium Is the Ma.s.sage The Medium Is the Ma.s.sage was a best seller that year. Hoving wanted to yank the museum into the same state of hip relevance. Having sniffed the winds of change at the peace marches and Central Park rallies his Happenings inspired, Hoving, like many liberal politicians, had become increasingly vocal about the issues then roiling America: racism, commercialism, and the Vietnam War. So in his pitch to donors to pay for the $250,000 exhibit, he spoke of the urgent need for dialogue between the races, to display the achievements of blacks, to educate whites, and to bring new audiences to the museum and the museum to a new audience. was a best seller that year. Hoving wanted to yank the museum into the same state of hip relevance. Having sniffed the winds of change at the peace marches and Central Park rallies his Happenings inspired, Hoving, like many liberal politicians, had become increasingly vocal about the issues then roiling America: racism, commercialism, and the Vietnam War. So in his pitch to donors to pay for the $250,000 exhibit, he spoke of the urgent need for dialogue between the races, to display the achievements of blacks, to educate whites, and to bring new audiences to the museum and the museum to a new audience.

Early in his tenure, Hoving had proposed placing mobile museums in trailers. But unsatisfied with that medium, he suggested to Parks that the museum buy a fifty-foot geodesic dome, fill it with art by day and planetarium-style projections at night, and move it from place to place by helicopter. Parker hopped a plane to Expo 67 in Montreal to see a dome the futurist Buckminster Fuller had built there. "There was no idea too outrageous to consider," Parker says, and soon Hoving erected an inflatable-in the parking lot of a Bronx hospital. "We were so well-intentioned, yet so naive," Parker says. "All the kids came and watched it rise, then they came back at midnight, knifed it, and watched it fall. We put Band-Aids on it, and it looked like a wounded veteran. But Tom always bounced back."

Hoving wasn't alone in aspiring to relevance. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Henry Luce Foundation signed on as backers of Harlem on My Mind. The show debuted eighteen months after it was conceived and, for better or worse, set a tone for the Hoving era.

All the contradictions that Hoving embodied were on display when the trustees met on January 14, 1969, the same day as the press preview of Harlem on My Mind. George Trescher reported that he'd signed up 987 centennial sponsors at $1,000, and thirteen corporations at $25,000 each were backing plans for an ambitious but traditional exhibition, Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries, that Rousseau had dreamed up. The idea was to show the greatest art in the world, loaned by its greatest museums in homage to the Met. Hoving, Rousseau, and the Wrightsmans had dashed around Europe for months to make it happen-a trip that sealed a burgeoning friendship and led to many more as Ted and Tom escaped New York to fly the world at the Met's expense. "We laughed for hours, we partied, even, at times, womanized together," Hoving wrote. "Perhaps one reason I was so fond of him was because I yearned to be him."90 Rousseau was the curator in charge of charming women donors to the museum. "That's what the Paintings Department did," says Hoving. Joan Payson's donation of $100,000 in 1969, earmarked for whatever purpose Rousseau chose, is but one example of his powers of persuasion.91 Less well-known is the extent to which he charmed women in his private life. "He loved s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g women," says Hoving. "We'd go to the lowest bars and strip clubs in Vienna and grab girls together and go back to our hotel." But Rousseau didn't charm only working girls. Hoving claims, and friends confirm, that aside from his lifelong affair with Berthe David-Weill, his lovers included the infamous Margaret, d.u.c.h.ess of Argyll; Shirlee Preissman, a California socialite; and Alicia Markova, the ballerina who co-founded London's Royal Ballet. Less well-known is the extent to which he charmed women in his private life. "He loved s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g women," says Hoving. "We'd go to the lowest bars and strip clubs in Vienna and grab girls together and go back to our hotel." But Rousseau didn't charm only working girls. Hoving claims, and friends confirm, that aside from his lifelong affair with Berthe David-Weill, his lovers included the infamous Margaret, d.u.c.h.ess of Argyll; Shirlee Preissman, a California socialite; and Alicia Markova, the ballerina who co-founded London's Royal Ballet.

Rousseau met the future d.u.c.h.ess-Cole Porter's Mrs. Sweeney, who would gain a dubious fame due to her world-cla.s.s promiscuity-after her first marriage, and kept seeing her after she married the duke. She said Ted proposed to her and she rejected him, but when the duke divorced her, in a case that included photos of her fellating another man, the loyal Rousseau gave her a needed alibi.92 Preissman was cheating on a much older husband, a Beverly Hills real estate developer who lived in a house built by the film stars Constance Bennett and Gilbert Roland and was "rich, rich, rich," says a younger woman in their circle. "It was an open marriage-on her side only. She was a very s.e.xy girl. Ted loved beautiful girls with substance, but he was a terrible sn.o.b. He was like JFK, he always wanted connections." Preissman was cheating on a much older husband, a Beverly Hills real estate developer who lived in a house built by the film stars Constance Bennett and Gilbert Roland and was "rich, rich, rich," says a younger woman in their circle. "It was an open marriage-on her side only. She was a very s.e.xy girl. Ted loved beautiful girls with substance, but he was a terrible sn.o.b. He was like JFK, he always wanted connections."

"No man in the world had better taste or more knowledge," says another of Ted's lovers, who asks to be anonymous. "Every sentence was a pleasure, no conversation was ever ordinary. With him, you'd see every gallery for the first time." This lover is unsure if David-Weill knew about her. "If she knew, she turned her eyes away; she epitomized the refined Frenchwoman. She served only pink champagne because it was more beautiful. She had pajamas and robes made for him in Venice." And when he was mugged, gave him a new black alligator briefcase. Perfect for a man "for whom everything was art," says the lover. "He wasn't going to see an unattractive woman."

David-Weill had many attractions. Every year, she'd take a table at the Diamond Ball, a society gala, and invite all his friends, even letting Ted bring a girlfriend. "She was clever as all Frenchwomen of that kind are," says the lover.

Hoving and Rousseau complemented each other. "You could see a mutual dependency," says the lover. Tom needed Ted's eye and was t.i.tillated by his lifestyle, the women, and the limousines that provoked whispers as they whisked him off to dinner. "Ted would appear and disappear like royalty," says the art dealer Klaus Kertess, who worked as an intern in Rousseau's department. "He knew people everywhere," says another of his lovers. "Tom hoped some of that would brush off on him. Ted loved Tom's quick thinking; he was always ready to do something now." now."

Ted served the man he called Our Leader to ensure that this lifestyle would continue.93 Despite all the glamour, he lacked money of his own and lived in a small apartment in a building without staff and a modest cottage on a lake in Connecticut, where he and David-Weill would coc.o.o.n on weekends and Ted would kayak, ride his BMW motorcycle, and practice yoga. Despite all the glamour, he lacked money of his own and lived in a small apartment in a building without staff and a modest cottage on a lake in Connecticut, where he and David-Weill would coc.o.o.n on weekends and Ted would kayak, ride his BMW motorcycle, and practice yoga.

Ted was equally adept at courting couples like the Wrightsmans. "Social life was on a much higher plane than now," says the lover. "Now it's how much money you have. Then it was intellectual achievement. That's why they loved Ted. It wasn't chitchat. He could tell them what they wanted to know. He was functioning at the highest level himself. And of course, Berthe had a name. People loved to have them to dinner."

If the appearance that he was escorting an older married woman led some to a.s.sume that Rousseau was secretly gay (as it did), so what? That was camouflage a former spy could appreciate. Rousseau didn't want a high profile. "He had all he wanted materially, intellectually, and s.e.xually," says his lover. "He was happy, I think." At least until Hoving's l.u.s.t for the spotlight dragged Rousseau into it, too.

THE H HARLEM ON M MY M MIND SHOW WAS CONTROVERSIAL BEFORE it opened. Harlem's cultural council dropped its support, claiming it had been used as window dressing. Two days before the press preview, the it opened. Harlem's cultural council dropped its support, claiming it had been used as window dressing. Two days before the press preview, the New York Times New York Times art critic John Canaday wrote about it, making glancing reference to Hoving's "appet.i.te for showmanship," which would soon become a stick the world would hit Tom with. Another critic took a hands-on approach, defied security, and, using a knife, scratched the letter art critic John Canaday wrote about it, making glancing reference to Hoving's "appet.i.te for showmanship," which would soon become a stick the world would hit Tom with. Another critic took a hands-on approach, defied security, and, using a knife, scratched the letter H H into ten paintings around the museum, among them a Rembrandt and a Guardi. A guessing game began. Did into ten paintings around the museum, among them a Rembrandt and a Guardi. A guessing game began. Did H H stand for "Harlem" or "Hoving"? stand for "Harlem" or "Hoving"?

Picket lines sprang up around the museum ("That's White of Hoving," said a sign), black artists were outraged, and Mayor Lindsay condemned the show catalog and demanded it be withdrawn because an introduction penned by a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl called Jews, the Irish, and Puerto Ricans obstacles to racial progress. ("Behind every hurdle that the Afro-American has yet to jump stands the Jew.") Some thought the controversy a positive. "Whatever else it may or may not be, the Harlem on My Mind Harlem on My Mind exhibit is jam-packed," a Luce Foundation official wrote to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, inviting its staff to a private viewing to avoid the crowds. exhibit is jam-packed," a Luce Foundation official wrote to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, inviting its staff to a private viewing to avoid the crowds.94 "It showed how alive the museum was suddenly," says Rosie Levai, who worked for Rousseau. "It showed how alive the museum was suddenly," says Rosie Levai, who worked for Rousseau.

Then it emerged that the introductory essay, written as a term paper, had been edited by the show's curator, an outsider, who'd asked the author to remove quotation marks and footnotes and rephrase thoughts and concepts she'd taken from Beyond the Melting Pot Beyond the Melting Pot, a sociology book written by the future U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Nathan Glazer, a Jewish Harvard professor. The curator, who was also Jewish, felt his ethnic background would head off accusations of anti-Semitism (and presumably paternalism and condescension). "The best of intentions can lead to h.e.l.l," he said after the scandal broke.95 "Lindsay said Tom should pull it, or the rabbis would kill him," Harry Parker recalls. "Hoving was fit to be tied." Initially, a statement of regret from the schoolgirl was inserted in every catalog. Then, when the outrage didn't die down, Hoving penned another insert himself. In response, the city's comptroller, an ex officio trustee, wrote to the board demanding they pull the catalog, "lest their silence be construed by the people of the City of New York as an a.s.sent to this most unfortunate development."96 Arthur Houghton responded with a fulsome apology. Arthur Houghton responded with a fulsome apology.

Finally, at the end of January, after concerns over racism and anti-Semitism spread across the city and a bill was introduced in the City Council proposing to withhold the city's subsidy, Hoving pulled the remaining twenty thousand copies of the catalog from the museum shop, although Random House continued to sell it in bookstores, trying to recoup what its chairman described as "a whopping loss on the project."97 Nothing tamped the furor. Two weeks into the show, the Nothing tamped the furor. Two weeks into the show, the Times Times reported that when a museum guard had tried to stop "a young Negro with a small beard and long hair, wearing a gray, striped overcoat," from writing "f.u.c.k H" on a staircase wall, the "vandal" threw him to the ground and slashed his hand. reported that when a museum guard had tried to stop "a young Negro with a small beard and long hair, wearing a gray, striped overcoat," from writing "f.u.c.k H" on a staircase wall, the "vandal" threw him to the ground and slashed his hand.98 "There were phone calls at night," said Rosenblatt, "threatening calls ...We had guards set up on the mezzanine to protect [us from] anyone who would come in and threaten Hoving." "There were phone calls at night," said Rosenblatt, "threatening calls ...We had guards set up on the mezzanine to protect [us from] anyone who would come in and threaten Hoving."99 The executive committee met in mid-February, with seven trustees and three representatives of the city in attendance, to discuss Harlem on My Mind. Houghton, Dilworth, Dillon, Josephs, Gilpatric, and Francis T. P. Plimpton, the lawyer, diplomat, and father of the writer George Plimpton, who'd joined the board in 1965, were worried that they'd given Hoving too much rope and he'd hung the museum.

The damage proved to be minimal, the defaced paintings were repaired, some letters of complaint came in, some members resigned.* And an anti-Hoving board faction, represented that night by Plimpton and Josephs, but also including Redmond and Wrightsman, demanded change. The group concluded that it needed to restate the purposes of the museum to avoid radical deviations in the future and accepted a suggestion made by a wavering Brooke Astor to save Hoving's scalp by creating a new committee to oversee exhibitions, headed by Gilpatric. And an anti-Hoving board faction, represented that night by Plimpton and Josephs, but also including Redmond and Wrightsman, demanded change. The group concluded that it needed to restate the purposes of the museum to avoid radical deviations in the future and accepted a suggestion made by a wavering Brooke Astor to save Hoving's scalp by creating a new committee to oversee exhibitions, headed by Gilpatric.

In his memoirs, Hoving claims he offered a spirited self-defense, retreated to his office, learned his fate from Houghton in private, and refused to comply. But according to the meeting minutes, Hoving, Rousseau, and other senior staff were summoned back to the boardroom, informed of its decision, and ordered to keep publicity about Harlem on My Mind to a minimum for the six weeks left in its run. Hoving considered it "a sock in the face" and says that his relationship with Houghton ended. However it went down, soon thereafter the president effectively stepped back from running the museum.100 It seems appropriate that just a few days after Hoving's comeuppance, the election to the board of Terence Cardinal Cooke, the recently named archbishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York, was announced. There were so many new trustees, the board had decided to issue them ID cards: Peter H. B. Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey congressman and Havemeyer descendant; John Irwin II, a son-in-law of IBM's Thomas Watson; Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who took his father's seat and was expected to keep the Times Times in line; Andre Meyer, who held a Lazard Freres seat; R. Manning Brown Jr., an executive with New York Life; and Mrs. McGeorge Bundy, a former dean at Radcliffe whose husband had been a colleague of Gilpatric's and Dillon's in the Kennedy White House before heading the Ford Foundation. Unlike most of them, Cooke lived up to the promise made in the press release announcing his appointment, to "broaden the museum's sphere of reference in order to meet with effectiveness increasing demands being made on it." in line; Andre Meyer, who held a Lazard Freres seat; R. Manning Brown Jr., an executive with New York Life; and Mrs. McGeorge Bundy, a former dean at Radcliffe whose husband had been a colleague of Gilpatric's and Dillon's in the Kennedy White House before heading the Ford Foundation. Unlike most of them, Cooke lived up to the promise made in the press release announcing his appointment, to "broaden the museum's sphere of reference in order to meet with effectiveness increasing demands being made on it."101

FROM THEN ON, HOVING WOULD SEEM LIKE A PUNCH-DRUNK fighter lurching from crisis to scandal and back while driving the museum into the red. When a stock market wobble followed his ambitious first years in office and the city proposed cutting the Met's stipend, Hoving threatened to shorten opening hours, and the cuts were restored. The museum still foresaw a $1.3 million deficit for 1969. But what he memorably termed "kerfuffles" couldn't overshadow what he accomplished, most of it traceable to the centennial, the defining act of his tenure. fighter lurching from crisis to scandal and back while driving the museum into the red. When a stock market wobble followed his ambitious first years in office and the city proposed cutting the Met's stipend, Hoving threatened to shorten opening hours, and the cuts were restored. The museum still foresaw a $1.3 million deficit for 1969. But what he memorably termed "kerfuffles" couldn't overshadow what he accomplished, most of it traceable to the centennial, the defining act of his tenure.

The museum's birthday party began with a ball honoring its 103 living benefactors on September 25, 1969, and continued for eighteen months, encompa.s.sing twelve exhibitions, the publication of eighteen books, five television shows, countless special events, lectures, concerts, and films. Five of those shows were blockbusters: New York Painting and Sculpture: 19401970; The Year 1200; 19th-Century America; Before Cortes: Sculpture of Middle America; and Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries. Cortes was supposed to open the festivities, but its complexity caused delays, and it was postponed. Hoving called Geldzahler on a Sat.u.r.day and said the New York Painting and Sculpture show was up first instead and Henry had nine months to set it up. Henry's show provoked lots of controversy, and for once that reflected well on the museum. And once again, the drama was all about contemporary art.

Henry was asked to do the show so fast that New York Painting and Sculpture: 19401970 opened in October 1969. The thirty-five second-floor paintings galleries were emptied of everything from Giotto to the Impressionists, and filled instead with 408 works by forty-three artists-only 12 of them owned by the museum. Henry felt it was the perfect moment to synopsize the New York school and bring it into the canon. His choices covered the bases from Joseph Cornell to Abstract Expressionists, color-field painters and Pop Art. But Henry's omissions-Cy Twombly, Larry Rivers, Jim Dine, and Louise Nevelson-drew flack. "You get grades for exclusion," he replied.102 Hoving called as Henry was putting the show together and asked him to include a black artist. "Which one?" Henry asked. "Maybe you're right," Hoving answered.103 Asked later why he included so many works by Frank Stella, Henry responded, "He's my best friend. He teaches me the most. Therefore, I respect him the most." It became known as "Henry's show," even though, Hoving claimed, George Trescher actually created the catalog over a long weekend, using bits and pieces of Henry's magazine writing, "when the over-rated Geldzahler could not finish it on time." Asked later why he included so many works by Frank Stella, Henry responded, "He's my best friend. He teaches me the most. Therefore, I respect him the most." It became known as "Henry's show," even though, Hoving claimed, George Trescher actually created the catalog over a long weekend, using bits and pieces of Henry's magazine writing, "when the over-rated Geldzahler could not finish it on time."104 Canaday publicly branded Henry the museum's Achilles' heel. Canaday publicly branded Henry the museum's Achilles' heel.

The opening was a circus, immortalized in The New Yorker The New Yorker by Calvin Tomkins for the see-through blouses and pot smoke wafting among the two thousand guests, while Henry, in a blue velvet dinner jacket, chatted with Andy Warhol atop the grand staircase. Asked why he didn't go in and see the art, Warhol said, "I am the first Mrs. Geldzahler." by Calvin Tomkins for the see-through blouses and pot smoke wafting among the two thousand guests, while Henry, in a blue velvet dinner jacket, chatted with Andy Warhol atop the grand staircase. Asked why he didn't go in and see the art, Warhol said, "I am the first Mrs. Geldzahler."105 Henry was burned in effigy outside the museum that night. "Or was it hung?" he wrote in a note to himself. Henry was burned in effigy outside the museum that night. "Or was it hung?" he wrote in a note to himself.106 Hoving later joked that he wished he'd written down the names of all the pot smokers. But young art lovers found it a revelation, the most important show the museum ever mounted, and a gesture of openness to communities the museum has always spurned.

The critics were harsh, inside and out. One day, a Geldzahler a.s.sistant found that someone had put an egg beneath the rooster that topped Robert Rauschenberg's Odalisk. Odalisk.107 The The New York Post's New York Post's Emily Genauer called the Met irresponsible and Henry part of a "coterie of taste-and-value-makers," implying grubby commercial and personal motivations. Emily Genauer called the Met irresponsible and Henry part of a "coterie of taste-and-value-makers," implying grubby commercial and personal motivations.108 "It will bring lasting discredit on the Met's standard of judgment," Hilton Kramer wrote. "It will bring lasting discredit on the Met's standard of judgment," Hilton Kramer wrote. Time Time called Geldzahler "the museum's most controversial acquisition in the last decade." called Geldzahler "the museum's most controversial acquisition in the last decade."109 Hoving realized that the more the museum was criticized, "the more the crowds stream in!" Hoving realized that the more the museum was criticized, "the more the crowds stream in!"110 Henry already knew what he'd done; he let his beard grow back in.

MICHAEL B BOTWINICK WAS BROUGHT INTO THE C CLOISTERS AS its lowest-ranking curator just as the centennial was getting started. But the Medieval Department's centennial show, The Year 1200, was Hoving's baby, so Botwinick was in the right place at the right time. Just as installation was beginning, his boss left on a trip and a.s.signed the new kid to handle the most complex medieval art show in history. its lowest-ranking curator just as the centennial was getting started. But the Medieval Department's centennial show, The Year 1200, was Hoving's baby, so Botwinick was in the right place at the right time. Just as installation was beginning, his boss left on a trip and a.s.signed the new kid to handle the most complex medieval art show in history.

With that as basic training, Botwinick was promoted to a.s.sistant to the curator in chief, Rousseau, running the Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries show-at $18,000 a year. He earned it. Botwinick realized that Rousseau's success arranging loans had created a problem: already running on fumes from Hoving's expenditures, the museum couldn't afford to insure the countless objects it had been promised. So Hoving canceled the loans and ordered Rousseau to start all over, showing only the best works owned by the Metropolitan as an overwhelming demonstration of the museum's might and of the centennial's larger purpose: not just to summarize the past, but to look to a future in which the collection was refined and its usefulness and ability to inspire and delight increased immeasurably.*

Hoving, Rousseau, and several a.s.sistants "went shopping in the galleries for a month," says Botwinick. "It was like reinstalling an entire museum. Those three years shaped the last quarter century of American museums. Masterpieces was the first full expression of what you can do with creative museum education. It was the first time we all understood the potential."

Botwinick also figured out the museum's system of Sultanates and satraps, the curators who disdained the administrators, the lesser lights who thought they should be kings. "Joe [n.o.ble] was impossibly difficult, pompous, insecure," he says. "He was never happy until he became a museum director." Early in 1970, Hoving caught n.o.ble complaining to Houghton behind his back-and soon after that, n.o.ble left to take the top job at the much smaller Museum of the City of New York. n.o.ble thought Hoving unprofessional and a liar; Botwinick saw the lie as the man. "There's almost no difference between the real Tom and the character, the drama of Tom," he says. "He was totally inhabited by that personality and persuaded of its power and effectiveness."

To Botwinick, Hoving had seized the museum as no one had since Cesnola. "The Met had nineteen departments, eight hundred employees," he says. "The canvas was huge. The staff was complex. The pattern was curators as giants. They enjoyed remarkable independence. Before Tom, all they had to do was take care of their galleries. You weren't expected to do; you were expected to be. There were no grand plans." Now the curators were either standing firm in opposition or else rushing to keep up with Hoving's demand that they be showmen as well as scholars.

The Greek and Roman curator Dietrich von Bothmer was a paradigm of the old school. "He tormented everyone, he was driven, a martinet, he accepted the authority of no one," says Botwinick. When Hoving asked him to produce a guidebook to his department, a pilot for a museum-wide program, Bothmer simply ignored him.111 "The cataclysm of Hoving was that he took the museum away from them," Botwinick says. "All of a sudden it all funnels through a director who is setting the ident.i.ty." Some curators felt diminished, but the best, "like Henry," were "elevated by Tom's letting them do star turns that made them rock stars." Curators had to adapt or die. Bothmer, having just married into money and enjoying his new wealth, would soon get with the program. "The cataclysm of Hoving was that he took the museum away from them," Botwinick says. "All of a sudden it all funnels through a director who is setting the ident.i.ty." Some curators felt diminished, but the best, "like Henry," were "elevated by Tom's letting them do star turns that made them rock stars." Curators had to adapt or die. Bothmer, having just married into money and enjoying his new wealth, would soon get with the program.

As iconoclastic and progressive as he was, Hoving understood that the bottom line was money. To get it, you had to get to the people who had it. Until the centennial, corporate donations had mostly come from companies a.s.sociated with trustees, like the Watsons' IBM and Houghton's Corning Gla.s.s. But under Hoving and Trescher, corporate benefactions began to be systematically courted.

"I credit Trescher with the invention of the blockbuster," says Barbara Newsom, a public affairs consultant who'd met him years before at Time Inc. and followed him to the Met. "In 1967, he already had it all worked out." By conjuring excitement, experimenting with new styles of presentation and promotion, tying events, scholarly and popular publications, and exhibits together, broadening the museum's audience, and especially tapping new donors, Trescher saw a way for the museum to reinvent itself via this celebration of its past.

Trescher launched modern corporate exhibition sponsorship with a pre-centennial show of frescoes from Florence, which had removed them from churches after a flood. Local officials offered to lend them to the Met to thank America for helping the city recover. Trescher decided to find a sponsor tailor-made for the show, offering ample public credit and private events in return. Advised by Italian diplomats, Trescher focused on Olivetti-Underwood, an Italian electronics firm making a push into the American market. Briefly, Hoving worried that he'd catch flack from art purists. But when Olivetti offered $600,000 and an ad campaign, he was sure it would be worth it.112 It was. The show was a hit, and other companies wanted in on the action. Xerox pledged $350,000 to pay for Henry's show. It was. The show was a hit, and other companies wanted in on the action. Xerox pledged $350,000 to pay for Henry's show.

Hoving and Trescher also saw the need to develop the museum's social side-that is, bringing the wealthy and connected in for parties-and in 1968 they hired Duane Garrison Elliott, who'd once worked at Tiffany for Hoving's father, to run events. "They wanted big, splashy events," she says. "They'd had about eight a year before that. I, alone, did ninety." Thanks to the fiasco that was the Harlem on My Mind opening, where many of the guests seated at Hoving's table didn't show up and others, like the Harlem politician Percy Sutton, refused to sit, she was taken seriously when she came in.113 She developed a party checklist with rules for everything from seating ("You would never see Tom Hoving at Table No. I") to what kinds of cigarettes to have on hand (Viceroy for Hoving, Benson & Hedges for Houghton). "I made it scientific," she says. She developed a party checklist with rules for everything from seating ("You would never see Tom Hoving at Table No. I") to what kinds of cigarettes to have on hand (Viceroy for Hoving, Benson & Hedges for Houghton). "I made it scientific," she says.

Trescher created the museum's first donor list with the names, addresses, businesses, and special interests of the first thousand centennial contributors, then expanded it with what he dubbed future favorites, people who might be cultivated to give money or art. Mixed feelings about social life notwithstanding, Hoving brought in fresh faces, too, like Estee Lauder, recruited to host a dinner for Florence Gould, the widow of the railroad tyc.o.o.n Jay Gould's son, in November 1968. "She was a potential benefactor," says Elliott. "She had a lot of paintings." The party was French themed with menus printed on handkerchiefs embroidered with red pet.i.tpoint roses. Lauder worried aloud when she saw that the silver Elliott had chosen didn't all match. "It's from the French Revolution!" Duane replied. "There isn't that much!" Lauder invited the heads of department stores, installed her signature products in the ladies' bathroom, and showed up an hour early with her own photographer to record the table settings.

The sudden explosion of semiprivate events was something new. The Metropolitan had always "done its best to keep its social doings to itself," wrote Charlotte Curtis, the New York Times New York Times social reporter. "But things seem to be changing." social reporter. "But things seem to be changing."114 Semiprivate fund-raisers, often held in the Lansdowne dining room, became increasingly common. In November 1969, Jayne Wrightsman held a dinner to celebrate the opening of their two latest French period rooms. She had Monet's Semiprivate fund-raisers, often held in the Lansdowne dining room, became increasingly common. In November 1969, Jayne Wrightsman held a dinner to celebrate the opening of their two latest French period rooms. She had Monet's Terra.s.se Terra.s.se taken out of its frame and leaned on an easel for the delectation of her guests. taken out of its frame and leaned on an easel for the delectation of her guests.

The Centennial Ball on the museum's birthday, April 14, 1970, was the culmination of months of hoopla-and Elliott's crowning achievement. Tickets were $125 ($40 for young people known as juniors and $20 for museum staff). After the elaborate invitations were mailed and there were only seven replies, Elliott realized they'd been held up by a postal strike, and Brooke Astor, head of the Centennial Ball Committee, suggested sending everyone on the invitation list a telegram signed Mrs. Vincent Astor. At Elliott's urging, they were signed Brooke Astor instead. In a way, it was her coming-out party.

Two nights before the ball, First Lady Pat Nixon attended the opening of the 19th-Century America exhibit. The donor Joan Payson toured it in a wheelchair (Hoving would soon buy a golf cart to speed her tours of the museum). The next morning Mayor Lindsay turned on the hundred jets in the new reflecting fountains outside the museum in a ceremony that began a daylong open house complete with a receiving line of museum officials, free coffee, a birthday cake, a medal stamped with the Met's new logo, an M M designed by Frank Stella, and a free family membership for every hundredth visitor. designed by Frank Stella, and a free family membership for every hundredth visitor.

A night later, twenty-eight hundred guests, including various Rockefellers, Lauders, Loebs, Vanderbilts, Whitneys, Wrightsmans, and Brooke Astor, were invited to climb the museum's new steps at ten o'clock to party in four galleries turned ballrooms, redone by society decorators in various styles of the preceding hundred years. The Egyptian galleries became a 1930s supper club; the Arms and Armor Hall, a Viennese ballroom; the Blumenthal patio was made over Belle Epoque style; and at midnight, the Dorotheum opened as a modern disco. As they left (the last stragglers at 4:00 a.m.), each guest was given a copy of Calvin Tomkins's museum history, published over the vociferous objections of old-timers like Redmond and Kay Rorimer.

"To sip champagne under the watchful eyes of the Great Masters, to mingle with the greatest celebrities, to eat fresh strawberries amid a Gay Nineties atmosphere, to feast on crepes, to swing to the Charleston in the Egyptian Court, to rock to psychedelic lighting around the pool, to waltz beneath Viennese royal splendor and to dance all night!" one guest raved in a letter to Doug Dillon. "Never has there been a birthday party so grandiose, so spectacular and so fitting."115 Elliott's favorite touch was the donut machine. She'd first rented one when Lila Wallace threw a party for the workmen who'd renovated the Great Hall. Joe n.o.ble hated the idea, but its two best customers were Doug Dillon and Tom Hoving, who sat near it all evening. "The next day Dillon called to ask where I got the machine," she says. He wanted to use it at a party for one of his daughters. Thanks to him, it also got an encore at the Centennial Ball. The only sour note was the $15,000 papier-mache birthday cake Trescher placed atop the octagonal information booth; Hoving declared it ghastly and had it removed just before the doors opened.

Met veterans argue to this day over who-Trescher or Hoving-deserves the most credit for the centennial's success at dragging the museum out of the past and reinventing it for its second century. But even though there's no question that they achieved many of their long-term goals, in the short term they lost money and left the Met in a financial hole. By 1971, a recession had set in, and after a party paid for by Astor for retiring employees, Duane Elliott left the museum. The party was over-for a few years at least.

THE PUBLIC VERDICT ON THE CENTENNIAL, WHICH ENDED WHEN Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries came down in March 1971, was mixed. "What began as a thank you to the ancien regime devised by a new generation came to be seen as bread and circuses," says Botwinick. In a wrap-up article, the Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries came down in March 1971, was mixed. "What began as a thank you to the ancien regime devised by a new generation came to be seen as bread and circuses," says Botwinick. In a wrap-up article, the Times Times called it "a giant promotional stunt, a cheapening of the inst.i.tution, an extravaganza whose funds [the final cost came to $4 million] were better spent elsewhere, and in the words of one biting critic, 'an ego trip for the museum and its director.' " called it "a giant promotional stunt, a cheapening of the inst.i.tution, an extravaganza whose funds [the final cost came to $4 million] were better spent elsewhere, and in the words of one biting critic, 'an ego trip for the museum and its director.' "116 Within the walls of the museum, though, there was little doubt of its success-a view history would support as most big museums began operating in permanent centennial mode. The hard sell had attracted hordes of new visitors, not only increasing audience, but burnishing the Met's international image and status. If the noses of a few purists were out of joint because their private treasure house had been turned into a public pleasure palace, that was a small price to pay.

The centennial "put Harlem away," says Botwinick. Even though Hoving had to cancel the international loans for Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries, the fact that they'd been offered proved "we could command the monuments of Europe to come here. It gave a grand sense of what the museum could be. Everyone was taken by the brilliance and scope of it. The centennial put the trustees in the same role as their forebears, a hundred years earlier. It made them realize we needed a temple equal to our ambitions." But truth be told, Harlem on My Mind was not behind Hoving, and the Roche master plan, which Hoving had announced at the centennial opening, threatened to drown all the good feelings in a tsunami of acrimony.

Hoving's first priority in making his dream museum real was ensuring that Bobbie Lehman's art collection would come to it. Even after Lehman wrote his will, in the spring of 1968, Hoving couldn't count on anything; first he had to come up with a plan for housing it that would satisfy Lehman and his son, Robin. Roche had tried but failed to find an acceptable way to incorporate or duplicate the Lehman house in the museum as Bobbie wanted. "There are mountains of drawings that Kevin produced," said Arthur Rosenblatt, "of putting the whole house, reproduced, on the back lot of the museum."117 As Lehman lay dying, the architects finally came up with a plan every-one liked, removing the grand stairs from the Great Hall and cutting a new boulevard west through the museum's medieval court, ending in a gla.s.s-roofed octagonal pavilion-most of it hidden by a steep landscaped lawn so it was hardly visible from the park-housing the Lehman Collection in a series of rooms that duplicated those in the town house. Looking back toward the Great Hall, one even caught a glimpse of the redbrick facade of Calvert Vaux and Jacob Mould's original building.

In June 1969, Lehman agreed to it-but swore Hoving to continued silence. So immediately after Lehman's death in August, Hoving pushed to announce (and so sanctify) what was by then estimated as a $100 million gift at the September ball that was to kick off the centennial. Weeks of tortured negotiations with the foundation and family followed to make that happen. And though Robin Lehman announced the gift that night, it would take many more months to nail down the details and almost thirty years to end the niggling and lingering bitterness between the interested parties over the precise terms of the bequest.

Hoving spends pages of his memoir painting Robin Lehman as obstructive and irrational. That seemed to be confirmed the following spring, when Robin suddenly challenged his father's will in court. Ultimately, all the disagreements, like Bobbie Lehman's own with the museum, boiled down to ego and hard feelings magnified by wealth. "There was art, money, and estrangement involved," says Michael M. Thomas, the former curator, who'd gone to work for Lehman Brothers and become a trustee of the Lehman Foundation. "Bobbie was a cold man, and Robin hadn't been close with him for some time. He was at odds with his stepmother. There was nothing sinister about it. It was about his share." Which finally did get a little bigger. In a complex transaction in 1971, Robin got a Renoir nude, a Ca.n.a.letto of the Grand Ca.n.a.l in Venice, a batch of drawings, his father's stamp and coin collections, and his great-grandfather's desk. In the end, he says, all that matters is that his father's will was done. "The stuff lives on. The name is still there. I don't personally think he's around to enjoy it, but who knows."

IN THE VERY SAME SEASON THAT HE'D SEALED THE DEAL FOR THE Lehman art, Hoving claims he decided, urged on by Rousseau, to convince Nelson Rockefeller to give the museum his collection of primitive art. Actually, he was just there to catch it when it came his way. Lehman art, Hoving claims he decided, urged on by Rousseau, to convince Nelson Rockefeller to give the museum his collection of primitive art. Actually, he was just there to catch it when it came his way.

Rockefeller had first proposed a museum of what he called indigenous art to the Museum of Modern Art in 1942 as part of his effort to improve ties with Latin America. He'd begun collecting it himself and felt it was undervalued. When the Modern proved reluctant, he, Rene d'Harnoncourt, the Modern's director, and others incorporated it as an independent ent.i.ty in 1954, and renovated one of the family's town houses on West Fifty-fourth Street to hold it. In 1956, its name was changed to the Museum of Primitive Art, because Rockefeller worried that few understood the word "indigenous." Though he knew that Mexicans, among others, objected to the word "primitive," he wrote to Kelly Simpson, a former Met curator who'd married into his family and become a primitive museum trustee, that every catalog it issued would refer to the greatness of its contents to make clear that no insult was intended.118 The museum opened in February 1957 and attracted a thousand visitors a month to its display of about 250 objects, mostly loaned or given by Rockefeller. In coming years, Rockefeller, then New York's governor, would occasionally add to its holdings. But he was careful: in the late 1960s, when the Guatemalan government alleged that a stela in the collection had been looted from its soil, he returned it, claiming he didn't know it had been taken from a Mayan temple, though in truth he did.119 Rockefeller's enthusiasm for his collection began to wane after the disappearance of his son Michael, twenty-three, off the coast of New Guinea, where he was studying and collecting himself. The governor and Michael's twin sister, Mary, flew there to join the ultimately fruitless search for the missing youth. Soon, Rockefeller began selling parts of the collection.120 A money crunch had coincided with Michael's death. With attendance small and expenses large, Rockefeller began thinking about alternatives to continuing to subsidize the museum's operations. A money crunch had coincided with Michael's death. With attendance small and