Oral history interview with Blanchette F. H. Rockefeller, 1970 June 30-August 19

Transcript

Preface

The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Blanchette Ferry Hooker Rockefeller on June 30 and August 19, 1970. The interview took place in New York City, and was conducted by Paul Cummings for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. 

The original transcript was edited. In 2024 the Archives retranscribed the original audio and attempted to create a verbatim transcript. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Additional information from the original transcript has been added in brackets and given an –Ed. attribution. Poor audio throughout parts of the interview led to words and phrases being inaudible; the original transcript was used to clarify passages.

Interview

[00:00:04.35]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  I want to put the date June 30, 1970. Paul Cummings talking to—how do you pronounce that—Blanchette? 

[00:00:14.15]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Blanchette. 

[00:00:14.81]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Blanchette—

[00:00:15.38]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yeah. 

[00:00:15.88]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  —Rockefeller. I haven't heard that name [Blanchette] before. Where's that from? 

[00:00:21.89]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I think it's unique in the whole United States of America because I'm absolutely unable to ever get anybody to understand what it is. And my husband says that all he has to ever do is sign "John and Blanchette," and everybody knows, in international cables or anything. [They laugh.] It's a very good subterfuge for him. 

[00:00:46.05]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Because I've never seen it before. 

[00:00:48.15]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  It was simply concocted because my mother's name was Blanche, and I was the fourth daughter, and they ran out of names. 

[00:00:55.75]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, I see. 

[00:00:57.96]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  That was how it was, but it's been a rather difficult thing to live with. 

[00:01:03.84]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, but the uniqueness of it is nice. Well, let's see. You were born in New York, and did you grow up here? 

[00:01:15.49]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes, I've grown up in the city. I went to day school at Miss Chapin's from the time I was six years old until I was admitted to college. And then I went to Vassar. But always my family living in New York in the wintertime. And we had a place in Greenwich where we went. 

[00:01:37.86]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  For the summer? 

[00:01:38.86]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  For the summers, and we camped some summers. But I'm a real New York product, which is rather rare I'm told. There aren't too many. And my husband also is a New Yorker, was born in New York. 

[00:01:52.18]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, you were saying you studied music. When did that start? 

[00:01:55.85]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, my family have always been on the artistic side, particularly on my mother's side. I had three older sisters, and we all loved music, really. But three out of the four were particularly interested in piano. And I had a sister who studied to be a singer and took a master's degree at the Eastman School of Music in Composition. 

[00:02:28.05]

Her voice didn't pan out, but she did love music and knew a lot about it. And I really followed along those lines, studying piano quite hard through college. And I kept it on for some time afterwards off and on through my life. I finally dropped it now because of diminishing returns set in after a while. [They laugh.]

[00:02:55.00]

But I think it's curious the way that a love of one art usually gets you mixed up in the others, too, in one way or another. And so after I was married about ten years, I began to get very interested in Museum of Modern Art. And that was, of course, through my in-laws, and their interest in it. And then I began to get very discouraged about the fact I'd never even taken a history of art course in college. I was sort of starting at the wrong end in a way, with contemporary [art]. 

[00:03:40.75]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  What did you study then at Vassar? [Inaudible] music was—

[00:03:44.53]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, [music] was my major. And my second subject was German. I took German for four years because that went well with the music major. And then the rest of the subjects were just what I felt like. Some literature, and some American History and some—But those were the good old days when they had requirements that you—had to take certain things to major in certain things. But I traveled a lot in Germany in between years, and learned more German and listened to a lot of music. 

[00:04:23.95]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  How did you select German as a subject? 

[00:04:27.89]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I think for one reason my sister was studying singing with Lilli Lehmann in Germany, and we went once or twice to visit her over there. And I always loved summers in Germany. They have such a nice outdoor life. And then I was told that German was a language, which was very useful to know if you were going to go ahead with music. I could understand all directions on my piano music better. [Laughs.]

[00:04:59.23]

But I really have never regretted it, because I never would have had the history of music that I got—history and appreciation, and so on, in that field. And I have picked up quite a lot in the art field just in various ways without any real academic training. I did go after I got interested in modern art, and then my husband [audio cuts out] taken to the far East. And then we started being terribly interested in the Oriental art. 

[00:05:37.28]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Now we're jumping ahead. How did you select Vassar as a school? 

[00:05:43.04]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Oh, my mother had gone to Vassar and two of my three sisters. It was just a natural. And in those days, you didn't make a point of not going where your parents had gone, not as much as they do now. And I had been up there a great deal. It just never occurred to me not to go to Vassar. And I never regretted it. It was a very fine college in those days. I think it still is, but it was really outstanding then. And there wasn't the co-education as much as there is now. So it never occurred to me that being one of four girls, it might be a good idea [laughs] to go to a college where there were boys as well. But our youngest daughters thought differently, especially the youngest one. So she didn't follow in my line. 

[00:06:48.42]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, were there any instructors there that were particularly important to you as far as the scholastic attitudes or as individuals? 

[00:06:58.12]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes, there was particularly a very extraordinary professor of music who was head of the department for some time. And his name was Dickinson, Professor Dickinson. And he was really famous all over the country for his teaching of appreciation of music and the technical history of music. 

[00:07:30.99]

We were made to study harmony, and then the different music forms. We really had to have a pretty good knowledge of music before we were given our degree. Then I also did piano—performing music. So I have to do both and had to give a recital. I never was terribly good. I always knew I never would be a concert pianist. But I did get enormous pleasure from it.

[00:08:07.09]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  It's an interesting discipline, too. 

[00:08:09.03]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes, yes, it was. 

[00:08:11.47]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  It's physical as well as mental. 

[00:08:14.86]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. But the only training I ever got in art, in the visual arts, was later on when I decided to go to Columbia and work toward a master's degree. 

[00:08:27.03]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  When was that? 

[00:08:27.84]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And that I did when I was 45, after we'd been to the Orient quite a lot. And I took history courses and history of Japan. I took two years. I was married and had three children at that point, so I didn't really—I just would take about two courses a year, and I did this for two or three years. 

[00:08:55.67]

And ever since, I've been recommending adult education to people. I've never enjoyed anything as much as I did that, because I had the motivation. And I had—it was a return to academic things, or I'd have been all bogged down with children and domestic problems. And it was just so exciting. I really think I learned more in those courses just because I was so terribly interested, and wasn't taking five whole courses all at once. 

[00:09:32.48]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Right. Who did you study with there? 

[00:09:33.92]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I studied—the Japanese history, I studied with Sir George Sansom, who was a very distinguished Englishman who had lived for many years in Japan. And he was very, very much looked up to by the Japanese as a scholar in Japanese art and Japanese history. And he has written textbooks, which are still used in universities, both abroad and here, as the sort of definitive cultural history of Japan. 

[00:10:14.28]

He's no longer living now, but he was a marvelous man, really very sensitive and a real scholar. And I had him the last two years before he retired, so I was very lucky. And then I went down and took a modern history of Japan with Dr. Hugh Borton, who was at Columbia, and he was head of the Far Eastern Institute study center, or whatever it is they call the China and Japan Studies.

[00:10:48.50]

And then he went to be the president of, not Swarthmore, but what's the other smaller Quaker college? I just don't think of it along—those were my two main professors. And then I had Dr. Jane Gaston Mahler. I don't know if you know her. She's a little older generation, too. I think she's retired now, but she was teaching History of Oriental art. I didn't actually get my master's degree, because I never had time to sit down and write the paper at the end. But I got within three points of it. I took all the courses, and that was—I decided it wouldn't matter whether I had a degree or not. 

[00:11:47.34]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Did you plan to write the [thesis], or was it just—

[00:11:50.68]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I would have liked to, but we kept going to Asia right when I was supposed to be doing this thing. I wrote a lot of term papers for the courses. Most of the time, I did much better than I did when I was at Vassar. 

[00:12:06.56]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, really? 

[00:12:08.97]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I think they were sort of astonished to have an old lady like me in the class. So they paid more attention to me. Maybe they thought it was remarkable I could do anything at all. But it was a very—it was very exciting. It got me really interested in the Oriental things. And Mr. Rockefeller, I always felt sorry for him because he was the one that was doing the collecting, but I was the one that was having the fun learning about it. And he, of course, didn't really have time to do all that. 

[00:12:44.25]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  That's an interesting combination. 

[00:12:46.62]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, he's been very, very nice about wanting to share it all with me and wanting to—we've sort of made decisions together. At least he's made me feel that I was influencing somehow. [They laugh.] Once in a while, he has refused to buy something that I thought he should. And once in a while, I haven't liked something, but I'm more liable to like them than he is. In general, I've tended to go along with his taste.

[00:13:20.72]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Are your areas of interest similar? 

[00:13:25.31]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, in the Asian art, very much so, yes. Yes. Although, I do feel that if he could have taken some of these courses, he would have had a little different slant at some of the things, getting a little more of the historical importance of a certain piece rather than having to just rely on his own aesthetic reaction to it. Although, I don't believe in—if you're collecting, getting something that's just important because it's historical, even if it may not be pleasing this way. I think there are museum directors who do that because they have to for public education. But as a private collector, you don't have to do that. 

[00:14:20.24]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  No, that's true. Well, you said it was, what, in the '40s that you got interested in modern art. 

[00:14:26.93]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. Let me see. It was a little later than that. It was when they started—they were having a drive to redo the building, the original building on 53rd Street. And I was brought in to start forming a Junior Council [at the Museum of Modern Art –Ed.] to get more younger people in and get them working on committees, not only for fundraising, but also for knowledge of the Museum. At that time, they started the art lending service, which was really handled by the junior council. And that was going on, and became very successful. We were one of the first museums to have a rental, a rental service where you could take something home with you and try it for a few months before you paid for it. 

[00:15:28.06]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, what—I'm curious how the development of the Museum—you obviously went to the Museum before and knew about it at some point?

[00:15:44.83]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, but I really hadn't done much about it. I'll tell you, there was one thing that I think was an influence on me in terms of visual arts. I told you there were four girls in my family, and my two older sisters were most interested in music, particularly the second one, who was the singer. 

[00:16:08.49]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  What were their names?

[00:16:09.73]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, the oldest one was Barbara, and she's about eight years older than I am. And she has never married. She's living in Pennsylvania now. But she loved to play the piano, very nice, again, just as a good amateur. Then the next sister was the musical one, and she was a real character. She has since passed away, but first of all, she wanted to be an opera star. She just was really opera crazy and started singing quite young. And then she also played the piano. And I used to follow her around, and she used to take me to the Wagner operas. And then she taught me all the leitmotifs and the stories. And she was very enthusiastic, contagious kind of enthusiasm. But she passed on. 

[00:17:14.15]

And then, as I said, I used to go and visit sometimes in Germany when she was studying. Her teacher lived in Salzburg in the summer. And, of course, even then, in those days, the Salzburg festivals were going on—Max Reinhardt and the theater and the wonderful outdoor concerts, and the Mozarteum where they had these lovely little concerts of chamber music. So I got a pretty good saturation of beautiful music. And I just loved it. 

[00:17:50.70]

But then the third sister loved music but never tried to play it. And she was just definitely a visual arts person. And she always was doing sculpture and photography and stage design, again, in an amateurish way. But she did not go to college. She was really the most artistic in the family. And I think that she was really quite a lot of unexpected influence on me later on, because I've always found—she was a sculptress, and she still does sculpture quite well. And I find that I'm very susceptible to sculpture. I love sculpture, and I feel much more sure of my judgment on a piece of sculpture than I do on a painting. 

[00:18:52.14]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Hmm. Do you ever wonder why? 

[00:18:54.85]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  I don't know why, something about the round. I can spot a piece of sculpture that's not very good taste much quicker. I can get fooled on paintings sometimes. 

[00:19:08.90]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  That's interesting, because I'm the other way around, and I'm always curious about—

[00:19:11.81]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I think most people are. I think sculpture is quite hard for most people. But I have had a terrible time in my own little collection. [Laughs.] I'm just always buying sculpture, and I never have anywhere to put it. 

[00:19:25.04]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  That does start taking up space. 

[00:19:26.33]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes, it does. But I suppose all these influences were—and I was the baby sister, so I got the benefit of all the teaching and the tutoring and—

[00:19:42.49]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Yeah. Well, have you been a museum-goer? Do you go to museums? Do you go to a lot of museums? 

[00:19:47.41]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes, now I do. I just love it. I wasn't so much as a girl, I don't think, except as I was taken. But we traveled abroad a lot as a family. And I did used to go to the Louvre, we'd go. We'd travel in a very informal and relaxed way, which you could do in those days. And I had never been to the Far East or anywhere except—no further East than Germany until ten years after I was married. And it was my husband whose interests were really particularly in Asia. 

[00:20:32.40]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Even then? 

[00:20:34.07]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes, he had traveled around the world the year after he graduated from Princeton. And he went and lived in Geneva for a little while. First, one summer, while he was still—he was a junior at Princeton, he worked for the United Nations in Geneva. And that way he got very interested in national affairs. And then when he finished Princeton, he took a temporary job with a man named James G. McDonald, who was the president or director of the Foreign Policy Association. I forget if it's called that now. I think it is. 

[00:21:22.64]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  I think it still is, yeah. 

[00:21:25.59]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. And he was really quite a distinguished and brilliant man. And he took my husband as his secretary. I'm sure that the guy's family cooked this up somehow or other. But I don't know just how it came about. But he was going to make a world tour interviewing leaders of nations all through Europe and then on through the Far East. And Johnny went with him and was in on every one of these interviews. It was really a thrilling experience for a young man. 

[00:22:00.26]

And he ended up in Japan at a conference of the Institute of the Pacific [Relations –Ed.], which was an organization in this country, which later became rather discredited […] during the McCarthy period. But it gathered a lot of foreigners for a conference in Japan. 

[00:22:30.69]

And it's interesting that the man that he's been closest to in Japan, where we've been many times since, was just a few years older than my husband. And they met those two men at this conference. And then, after World War II, when we started going to Japan almost every year, they re-met for the first time after having been all through the war and everything. And they've been devoted friends ever since then. 

[00:23:05.24]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Who was he? 

[00:23:06.56]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  A man named Shigeharu Matsumoto, who is the director now of [International House of Japan –Ed.] in Tokyo, which is sort of like the [telephone rings] international center for scholars, and he's a very wonderful Japanese, very international. But we started going after the war because my husband was asked to go on a peace treaty mission as a cultural advisor. 

[00:23:40.59]

This is all history. This was all said before. But you're asking me how I got into it all. And that was because Mr. John Foster Dulles asked my husband to do this. And he asked us both to come in the route. And we spent about six weeks there. And this was my first trip to the Far East of any kind. And it was really very exciting. 

[00:24:09.37]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  A new world. 

[00:24:11.85]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And from then on, then Johnny got very much involved in what this assignment was and what got him started. And he kept going back every year trying follow up things. 

[00:24:25.63]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Hmm. 

[00:24:29.46]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  So we've been really very more closely associated with Japan than any other Asian country, but then started branching out after awhile. One things leads to another. Japan's neighbors became interested in doing this. 

[00:24:46.26]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Right. Well—

[00:24:49.16]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  I'm afraid I'm wandering all over. 

[00:24:50.70]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  No, that's very good. Well, let's just kind of continue through with that, because where does the Japan Society and the Asia Society come in to all of this? 

[00:25:06.63]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, now, they came in just as this organization I was talking to you about in Tokyo—Johnny was asked to make a report to Mr. Dulles's commission as to what steps could be taken between the American and the Japanese people to try and counteract all the wartime propaganda that had been perpetrated on both peoples. 

[00:25:38.57]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Right. 

[00:25:40.40]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And if we were going to have a peace treaty and become friendly nations, Dulles's theory was that the paper wouldn't be worth much unless there was some spirit behind it and that a lot of counteracting had to be done. And so Johnny's job was to make suggestions as to how to go about this. And of course, cultural exchange was the obvious thing. 

[00:26:10.71]

So one of the suggestions was that there be an international center in Tokyo where visitors from Western nations could go and exchange really frank programs and opinions with scholars from other Asian countries, and particularly Japan, and let it have a very distinguished scholar as the director. And that's where Mr. Matsumoto came in. 

[00:26:40.75]

And another suggestion was that the Japan Society in this country, which had been formed a number of years before World War II, and had been quite active before that, be revived and reactivated. And Johnny was made the president of that. And some of the old—you know, it had been obviously very quiescent during the war. So that was brought to life again. 

[00:27:13.25]

And then there was also the idea that a society for the other Asian nations, cultural exchange society, really was needed. There was nothing except governmental agencies, like India House or the consulate generals, and so on, which were all tainted with propaganda, or could be. But there should be a straight civilian membership kind of organization, sort of on the order of the English-speaking community. Only perhaps, in the case of the Asia society, there wasn't enough interest in this country, say, for a country like Cambodia. Or at least there wasn't then. And even India didn't—there weren't enough Americans who'd been to India. So they sort of lumped them together, and the Asia Society was supposed to cover all programs for all these countries. And they have now, they have committees—country committees which represent people who are particularly interested in different countries. But the program covers, really, all of the countries of Asia except Japan, which had its own society. 

[00:28:35.98]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Its own, yeah. 

[00:28:37.19]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And after a few years, the money was raised to build that nice looking building on 64th Street, if you've been to the Asia Society. And that was originally the home of both the Japan Society and the Asia Society. And I will say my husband has been very much the motivating factor in getting those going. And they were all the outcome of this report. 

[00:29:04.50]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, that's interesting. 

[00:29:05.41]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And then, of course, he's done a lot of other things that have tried to encourage cultural exchange by personally supporting some performing groups or performing groups like the Gagaku group, what do they call those Japanese dances, Gagaku. Did you go to see those, those very—the court dances. 

[00:29:28.75]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  No, [inaudible]. 

[00:29:30.16]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And the Balinese dancers came. And he's been certainly not entirely doing all this, but he's helped toward facilitating all these different things. And I really think Americans now are very interested in Asian art. 

[00:29:46.49]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  All right. 

[00:29:47.34]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Of course, then the Korean War and then the Vietnam War. We've all been much more conscious of Asia. [Telephone rings.]

[00:29:56.39]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  What about the problem of the Chinese? 

[00:30:01.20]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, this has been—this has been an interesting one. As you know, there is a very—quite an old organization called the China Institute, which I think has been—I don't know the history of it too well. But I know that Henry Luce and his family have had a lot to do with the support and the activating of that because, as you know, he and his sister were both—they were missionaries over in China. And he has been very strong in his interest in nationalist China. 

[00:30:48.89]

The Asia Society didn't want to get—now, this may be—I'm not sure if I should get into this field. [Laughs.] This may have to be restricted, but we'll see how it goes, because it's a very delicate international subject, obviously. But the Asia Society felt that it didn't want to line up with nationalist China too much. There had been talk about the two societies merging. It also couldn't be representing communist China, either. 

[00:31:30.96]

So it's rather played down—the Chinese thing—but hoping that sometime in the future the two—it might resolve itself. And we wouldn't have taken a position where we were all identified with nationalist China. They just wanted to keep it fluid. I think this perhaps shouldn't be said in—but it's been a very interesting question because we wanted to be interested, and it's very hard to think of China as anything except a major influence in the Far East. 

[00:32:12.16]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, absolutely. It produced so much, and people travel. [Inaudible]

[00:32:17.44]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  But we really haven't been able to do very much in exchange politically, and in exchange of contemporary. But to get back to the art in a minute, one of the concepts of the Asia Society was to have within its building, a small, rather intimate gallery where the great art of the Far East could be shown in a very specialized and in a very high, plain quality, not necessarily excluding contemporary art, but with the emphasis on the ancient art, because it was so little known in this country. And that was how these exhibitions at Asia House began. And they have, of course, given many, many exhibitions of Chinese art. But they've tried to keep, in their educating program—tried to keep entirely on the historic side, and keep away from contemporary politics. 

[00:33:30.82]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  It's a tremendous problem with Chinese scholarship—

[00:33:37.92]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  That's right. We've often discussed in that gallery whether—I've been quite close to the gallery part of the Asia Society, because, again, that was what I knew a little more about. I'm not very—I'm interested in politics, but I'm not at all trained in it, and economics and politics are something that I'm just on the fringes of. But with the art, I have really loved being connected with that gallery in a rather informal way. 

[00:34:19.14]

I do think that they've done a wonderful job in showing exhibitions of the highest quality and on a scale that are so delightful because all our great museums are so enormous, and so overwhelming. And I've heard more people say that they just love going into that gallery. It's just two rooms, really. And they're beautifully shown. And they're things of unquestionable rarity and beauty. 

[00:34:56.03]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  But you haven't been a trustee there or anything, have you? 

[00:34:58.80]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  No, no, because all I am is the president's wife. [They laugh.] And I have always felt that—I think that I've just been there because I was interested in doing a little legwork for my husband in terms of the things that I could do. I've been on their what they call an advisory committee, where they have—they have gradually collected together on this committee really about the 12 or 15 outstanding Oriental art experts in this country. 

It's just absolutely superb committee, men who have given their whole lives to studying Asian art. And some of them were like Sherman Lee, director of Cleveland Museum and Laurence Sickman, who was director of the Kansas City Museum, [telephone rings] and Richard Fuller, director of Seattle Museum. There are three museums in the country that have absolutely outstanding—

[00:36:07.87]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  [Inaudible]. 

[00:36:10.00]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And these men [and others –Ed.] take the trouble to come to our meetings once or twice a year. And we just pick their brains as to what exhibitions we should give next. And then we ask them to do them. And there's enough of them. And they each have their own particular thing that they love and know about. Sherman Lee lived in Japan for two years, and he's just absolutely super. Well, he's super on everything, but he loves Japanese tea ceremony type of things. And they—even with their terribly busy programs, they come and they act as guest directors for us. And they'll write the catalog. You know, it's extraordinary that they'll do it for this little organization. 

[00:37:03.21]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, maybe little in size, but people know it's there. 

[00:37:10.53]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I think what's happened is, too, that they're allowed to really let go on their quality, their standards of quality. And also, in their own museums, they all have to give exhibitions of all art. 

[00:37:26.72]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Right. Lots of other—

[00:37:27.29]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And Oriental only gets in a small proportion of the time. And so they're constantly frustrated. And this gives them a chance to do a really sort of a gem show of something that they're deeply invested in. I account for it that way, and I also account for the fact that Gordon Washburn, who is the director of the gallery, is a man of great taste and great wisdom. He's not an Oriental expert. And when we asked him to come to Asia House, he said, well, "Why are you asking me?" I've been—he was at Pittsburgh Museum. I forget what it was called. But he said—

[00:38:10.90]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Carnegie. 

[00:38:11.41]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yeah, the Carnegie. He said, "I wanted to be an Oriental expert, and I adore Oriental art. But I certainly am not an expert." And we said, "Well, nobody could be an expert on all the countries and all the areas that we want to show. So what we need is a museum man who is respected by his fellow museums and who would be trusted with their treasures if we borrowed them." And it's just worked out. 

[00:38:45.68]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, yeah, absolutely. 

[00:38:48.50]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  So I think that those men really deserve an enormous amount of gratitude. And I think they've enjoyed it as well. 

[00:38:58.50]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, I did a tape with [George Washburn –Ed.], and he's thoroughly enjoying every minute of it. 

[00:39:01.74]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. Well, this has been a lovely sort of final crown to his career because it's been small enough to be manageable. And he really had a lot of headaches. I think, in Pittsburgh. And he really is interested in contemporary art, too. And he wasn't too much appreciated there. There weren't that many enthusiasts. 

[00:39:28.76]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  He said a number of times, he said, "I don't understand it; Mr. Canaday used to hate the show that I was doing for the Carnegie. And he loves the shows we do here." And he said, "I'm the same man." [Laughs.]

[00:39:40.00]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. Well, Mr. Canaday doesn't like a lot of modern art. That's the reason. I don't think it was personal against Gordon. 

[00:39:49.55]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  No, I think he also is very more accepting of Oriental art because it doesn't have some things—

[00:39:58.14]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes, yes, [Canaday] is probably is more attuned to Oriental art.

[00:40:07.19]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, sort of go over to the Modern—the Museum of Modern Art again, you mentioned you were there when the Junior Council was organized. 

[00:40:23.82]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes, in fact, I was the first chairman of the Junior Council. It started with two members, myself and one other. 

[00:40:32.05]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Who was the other one?

[00:40:32.44]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And started—well, one of the very first ones was Mrs. Donald Straus, who is now trustee of the Museum, very active. I think that there was a feeling at the time that the board of trustees was getting older and older. And there weren't younger people coming in. There was this sort of group of people who'd founded the Museum. And they were all moving up. And there was a great void beneath them. And they must bring in some younger people to be future board material, committee material, and learn about the Museum. And so we finally, after two or three years, had quite a lively group. And then of course, it went on, and I moved on up to something else, which was even harder to do. And that was the International Council. 

[00:41:29.63]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, that's something that interests me a great deal. 

[00:41:31.91]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  You know about that at all? 

[00:41:33.37]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, a little bit, but let's come back to that. 

[00:41:38.03]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yeah. 

[00:41:40.91]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  What was really the—where did the idea for the Junior Council come from? 

[00:41:47.06]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I think that the offices of the Museum felt this need for young people. And I was sort of intermediate. I wasn't quite as young as they wanted. And they thought that if I could collect some younger ones about my age and younger that this would be a good start. So they asked me to do it. I don't know why they asked me to. I'd been working on the drive with them a little bit. And I didn't really know just where to begin. 

Mr. Stephen Clark was on the board at that time, and Conger Goodyear, and my brother-in-law, Nelson Rockefeller. I think he might have even been president. I can't remember. Mr. Whitney was on the board, and they were all sort of worrying about this problem of getting more young people interested. 

[00:42:55.62]

So I spent about a year asking everybody I knew for names of people that they knew were intrigued with modern art. And we really did find an awfully good group, and a lot of them have stayed with us. Mr. Walter Bareiss, who is now a trustee, was one of the earliest group in that Junior Council. And he was a young German businessman who commuted back and forth from Germany. He was living in Greenwich at the time, but he had to go abroad a lot. And he was collecting. And Mrs. Donald Straus was also very interested in collecting. 

[00:43:40.90]

We tried to get a few people, quite frankly, who would be able to help financially in a smaller way, I mean in terms of their age group. And then others who didn't have any means to contribute but who would work. And we started out on a very interesting series of exhibitions, which the Junior Council really ran. And one was—it was to try and get the museum showing more of artists from all over the country, opening it up a little more to being more democratic, so to speak. 

[00:44:26.49]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  These were the exhibitions that were held up in the penthouse area. 

[00:44:30.61]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, no, no, not the—what were those called? I know what you mean. No, those were done by the Museum. 

[00:44:39.56]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  They were. What were some of the exhibitions then that you were—

[00:44:42.81]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  But the Junior Council exhibitions, they started out with a drawing exhibition. And they got names from all different galleries of artists all over the country. And they sent out a thing saying that they going to have an exhibition of young, unknown American artists for drawings, original drawings. And if they would send in—this is all past history, and I'm a little hazy about it. 

[00:45:14.33]

But I think what we did was, we asked them to send in, at their own expense, three drawings of their work, and that we would have a selection committee. And if we wanted, we would pick out one or two of their drawings if we liked them. If not, we would send them back at our expense. So it was wide open. It wasn't a competition. We didn't have prizes, but they were simply, if they were good, they were included in the exhibition. And it was very specifically labeled a Junior Council exhibition, so it did not have to be competitive with the Museum proper's standards of Picasso and Matisse and everybody else. And then the Junior Council had a preview, and they raised money that way. And then they sold a lot of the artists' works, and sent the money to them. 

[00:46:23.23]

So this was a very new thought at the Museum. And it was received very, very well by the artists and by the public. And then they did another one with prints and lithographs—graphics. And then they got more ambitious, and they had one of sculpture, which was quite a headache, I must say. [They laugh.] But it also was successful, and the Junior Council just adored doing it. Imagine how much work it was. And they did it all themselves. The staff were the jury of helping them select. But all the mechanics, the Junior Council did themselves. 

[00:47:09.97]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, how large was the Council at this point? 

[00:47:13.64]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, it grew each year. It's quite a big group now. I'm not sure what the count is now. But I would say during the time that I was chairman, it got to be about 25. And it was always men and women, sometimes husbands and wives. We always had problems getting enough men because there were always lots of women who wanted to join. The men were too busy. 

[00:47:45.76]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Yeah, [inaudible]. 

[00:47:46.96]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  But we had a few, and we got young architects and collectors. 

[00:47:54.80]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  How did the idea of the art lending service begin? 

[00:47:57.80]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, that was Walter Bareiss's idea. He was a good business man. And he said there ought to be some place where young collectors can come in and get the benefit of the Museum's taste and selection and have the fun of getting these things collected, you see. What he dreamed up was that there would be a committee of the Council who would—perhaps the more knowledgeable ones in terms of collecting—who would go to the different galleries and ask the galleries if they would consign a certain number of pictures or sculptures to the art lending service for sale. 

[00:48:49.83]

And the galleries would get a small percentage; and the Museum would get a small percentage, or rather the Council would. And nothing should be sold for more than $1,000, I think, was the beginning, was the top price. And then there was a size limit also, because you had to be able to carry your picture home with you. Have you ever rented one from there? 

[00:49:13.84]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  No, I've [inaudible]. 

[00:49:14.79]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  They have these big cases you carry them home in. And the galleries were very sticky about it at the beginning. They couldn't see any benefit to them in any way. And of course, if they did lend things, they were at first inclined to give their lesser good things. But after a while, it began to bring results, and they felt they were gaining new clients because the clients knew where they were—which galleries had loaned the pictures. 

[00:49:47.67]

And the thing just got going. Walter was awfully good about handling it, and he had one room up there fixed up with places to store the pictures. And then there was this committee of people that used to go out the rounds of the galleries. And oh, the one thing everybody wanted to be on was the selections committee. [Laughs.]

[00:50:10.18]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, I bet. That's the fun thing. 

[00:50:11.47]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And then we had one or two staff people—Bill Lieberman used to help with the final choice. Nothing was allowed to be kept that wasn't screened by one or two members of the staff, so that when you rented something, you felt you were getting a service from the Museum, that it had been—it had been really passed by them as being above average in quality. 

[00:50:39.03]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. No, I think it's been eminently successful. And now, maybe somewhere, 75 or 80 lending services in this country. 

[00:50:47.94]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  All over the country, I know it. I know it. 

[00:50:50.13]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Even libraries have [inaudible]—

[00:50:51.84]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I remember having an argument with a friend of mine who's very active in the San Francisco Museum, and she claims that they were the first to do it. [They laugh.] It's like the first theater in the United States, I think, or the first university. Doesn't Harvard claim to be the oldest? And William and Mary claims to be the oldest. So I don't know which [was the first –Ed.]. 

[00:51:13.55]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  There's competition there. Well, I still wanted—the Junior Council, then, really is a separate organization, but affiliated with the Museum. 

[00:51:29.80]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  No, it's under the board of trustees. 

[00:51:33.19]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, it is under the board. 

[00:51:33.31]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  They can't do anything if they're told they can't. 

[00:51:35.74]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, I see. 

[00:51:36.57]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  No, no. They're really a glorified committee of the board. And their chairman or president usually sits on the board of trustees. 

[00:51:47.57]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, I see. So it really—

[00:51:50.23]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. No, it's not a separate—

[00:51:51.61]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  It's a very close relationship. 

[00:51:53.56]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And the International Council is, also. Their sort of arms of the board of trustees. It would get very—

[00:52:02.83]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Complicated. 

[00:52:04.29]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  I know. I mean, because the Junior Council, every so often, if they want to have some kind of a wild shebang, good. If the trustees didn't keep some kind of control over things, it might get out of hand. 

[00:52:18.42]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Another street fair or something. Lots of fun. 

[00:52:21.55]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  That's right. [They laugh.]

[00:52:22.77]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, how long were you involved with the Junior Council then as a specific activity? 

[00:52:29.25]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I think it was about four or five years from starting from scratch until it got going. And then, someone dreamed up the idea of this International Council because—you want me to talk about that? 

[00:52:45.47]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Yes, because that's just what I was going to ask you about, yeah. 

[00:52:49.54]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. That started, again, right after World War II, when there was a feeling that Europe was kind of pretty well flattened out economically and psychologically. And American art, in the meantime, had been burgeoning, and the New York School of Painting was beginning to be born. And perhaps one might say that the art center of the world had been Paris before. And just about at that time, it became pretty clear that there was some pretty exciting work going on in this country, not only in New York but other places. 

[00:53:40.19]

And the board of trustees felt that there should be a cultural exchange effort made with Europe, first of all—it was particularly Europe—that they should be able to see the work that was going on in this country, and that our country would like to see what they were doing, that this would be morale-building to them and would help in the international understanding where some of the countries had been enemy countries—Italy and Germany, and so on. 

[00:54:18.01]

And it was really the Museum a little bit getting into a diplomatic field, to a degree. But the concept was that it should be done on the Museum's highest standards. And the question was how to finance this. So what actually happened was that the Rockefeller Brothers Fund—I think that my brother-in-law Nelson was very, very keen about this idea. 

[00:54:54.10]

And he pushed it quite hard. And the Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave a grant to the Museum for a three-year program of international exhibitions. And then they got in Porter McCray to run it for them because he'd done a lot of international exhibitions for Nelson [Rockefeller] in Latin America during the war when [Nelson] was coordinator for the Inter-American theaters. And they set up a whole department for this. And it went very, very well. But in three years, the money was all gone. So then what do you do? It's just become very popular and worthwhile. 

[00:55:41.88]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  People wanted more. 

[00:55:42.83]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. So then the Fund decided that they would make another grant, but they would make it in—for another three years, diminishing to zero to help the Museum carry it on first year and maybe half for the second year, and a third for the third year, and then finish, because you know foundations don't like to be stuck with something. 

[00:56:10.74]

So this is when we got the idea starting an International Council of patrons to run this—to finance this program. And we decided that because it was an international program, that we could go to patrons of art all over the United States, and not just New York, because it was not for the Museum's domestic program. And therefore, we were not competing with anything that the local museums in other cities were doing because they weren't doing this kind of thing. And it was a very tough thing to get going, because the museum directors were very possessive about their collectors. [They laugh.]

[00:56:56.24]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Absolutely. And their trustees and everything. 

[00:56:57.71]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And we finally got it on the road. But oh, we had some ups and downs, because people were very—and a lot of people—for instance, in some of the bigger cities like Chicago and Boston, we just couldn't get to first base with them. 

[00:57:14.55]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Really? Why? 

[00:57:16.11]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, the dues were $1,000 a year. And for us to ask some of their top collectors to contribute $1,000 a year when they needed the extra $1,000 a year—you know, it was going into someone else's territory. But eventually, these exhibitions really became important enough so that these people recognized it. 

[00:57:44.07]

And in the early stages, we were very much involved in the international expositions like the Biennale in Venice and these various—they had one in Sao Paulo, and they had one in Germany, and so on. And the government would do nothing about them. And either the United States [representation was organized and financed –Ed.] by the International Council. Now things are very different because of those—

[00:58:15.05]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Those other things. [Laughs.]

[00:58:16.33]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  I really think the International Council should get a lot of credit for having carried that ball so far. 

[00:58:22.26]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Do they still do international exhibitions? 

[00:58:26.67]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  The Council? Oh, yes. When I started, it was just like pulling teeth to get together 20 members. And now they have 150 members—

[00:58:39.81]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, really? 

[00:58:41.70]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  —giving $1,000 a year. That's $150,000 a year to do these programs. That's a lot of money. You can do some very good exhibitions, because it's getting harder because it gets more expensive all the time. 

[00:58:55.38]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  More difficult to borrow works. 

[00:58:57.70]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  That's right. But I think in this last decade, it has been an extremely useful thing. Now, maybe it isn't needed as much from here on because Europe is very familiar with American art now. 

[00:59:13.08]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, there are more dealers shipping back and forth. 

[00:59:14.94]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  There are more dealers, yes. The Asians need it now, you see? 

[00:59:21.93]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Yeah, South America still—

[00:59:23.95]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. We have a big Latin American. program. And we've tried in every case to share and share alike. The Latin Americans, for instance, are paying half the costs of our program. And there's a series of exhibitions going down there, and they—because now, as you know, people, they don't want—they want to share in something. They don't want it to just be handed to them.

[00:59:52.19]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  It's more real, too. 

[00:59:53.39]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. 

[00:59:55.25]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  I was curious. Why would somebody in Boston or Chicago or San Francisco want to become a member of the International Council, even though it's a good activity? 

[01:00:07.97]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I'll tell you why, because we make it a whole lot of fun for them. [Paul laughs.] We have two meetings a year. I talk—say "we," but I'm not chairman of it anymore. But Mrs. Straus is now the chairman, and she's just terrific. We have two meetings a year, and one is always here in New York, and the other is somewhere else. And we have the best time. We go. Of course, all these people have money to travel. They're well off, and they do the $1,000 a year as a contribution to the program. But they're delighted to buy a ticket, a round-trip ticket to London. 

[01:00:48.88]

For instance, we went to London two years ago, and we had the most marvelous time. London put on all kinds of things for us. One of our shows was opening over there at the Tate Gallery. And they had a dinner for the Council right in the Tate Gallery, the first time they've ever done anything like that. And all the people interested in contemporary art in London came. And the husbands and wives are allowed to go. 

[01:01:18.93]

And then, the Council organizes all kinds of really lovely things to do. We get entry to private collections. We go see people's homes and their pictures. And the British Museum opened their print rooms for us and brought out the most beautiful selection of masterpiece drawings that are never on exhibition—just laid them out all over the counters and let us spend two hours looking at these things. It was just thrilling. 

[01:01:54.19]

I can't tell you how much goodwill is generated by this exchange of people from the different countries, all interested in a common subject. And I have gone on quite a few of the trips. We were going to Japan this next year. We were going to have a big American sculpture show over there. And that's had to be postponed, because it's so terribly expensive, and the Japanese have bogged down in raising money, and this. It's not a very good time internationally right now to do it. But our whole crowd were signing up like anything to go to Japan. [Paul laughs.] So have I answered your question? [They laugh.]

[01:02:41.35]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  I see. I see. There are lots of goodies that aren't so apparent in the—

[01:02:46.94]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. Yes, and they have authority to suggest and motivate certain exhibitions. And they are used on different committees. Another thing we did, we started an Art in Embassies program. And nobody else in this country was doing anything about seeing that our poor ambassadors had something to hang on their walls. And our Council started that, and we borrowed pictures. I have a painting in the country—a young American artist that's been in New Delhi for ten years in the embassy that just happened to be—it was a Grace Hartigan, and it's just a marvelous, warm, sort of Oriental colors. And it just looked as though it was painted from India. 

[01:03:39.22]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Perfect, yeah. 

[01:03:40.42]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And now, of course, there are other organizations doing something about it in Washington. But I really think we called their attention to the fact that this was shocking. We're the only country in the world that didn't supply some kind of furnishings, something of a cultural nature. 

[01:04:02.33]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  All those empty rooms.

[01:04:04.24]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes, yes. It's all right if you have a wealthy ambassador who has beautiful paintings of his own. But many of our regular foreign service people just don't have those things. 

[01:04:19.71]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  In the court of St. James in Paris and Rome. 

[01:04:22.56]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. 

[01:04:22.93]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  The rest of the ambassadors have to make do. 

[01:04:26.62]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yeah, and [the works of art –Ed.] are very important in—they mean a lot to people that come into the embassy. 

[01:04:34.72]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  That's interesting. I didn't know that the International Council had been involved with that. 

[01:04:38.96]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  We really started it. You know how it started. I'll tell you how it started. One of our members was Mrs. Corrine Strong from Washington. And her husband—she's a very artistic person. And her husband was appointed ambassador to Norway. And she came to the Museum of Modern Art to Porter McCray and said, "Would you be willing to lend me some pictures for our embassy that would be suitable in Norway?" 

[01:05:14.24]

And she knew Porter McCray, and he got permission to loan a few things from the collection that weren't being used. And that really was the thing that started the whole idea. And then we decided that this was something that we would do if ambassadors wanted it. Obviously, we wouldn't do it to anybody who didn't want it. 

[01:05:38.53]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  A lot of them do want it? 

[01:05:39.78]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, when they began to hear about it, they did. And then we did the embassy in Germany, was the next one. We did the embassy in Tokyo. It was a very impressive list. 

[01:05:53.35]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  That's something. 

[01:05:57.83]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  That is sort of winding up now because it's being taken care of. But I think we really forced the government into recognizing this need. 

[01:06:10.79]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, are people on the International Council trustees, or do some of them become trustees? 

[01:06:17.88]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, yes, the officers of the Council, or certainly the president of the Council has to be a trustee. There again, we couldn't have them going off in some direction that was in opposition to Museum policy. And one thing that the Museum has always tried to insist on was that anything that these groups do has to be in accordance with Museum standards. We think we're very special about our standards, and whether anyone else does, I don't know. But we just do have the feeling that so far as anyone can judge standards in contemporary art, it's terribly important to stick to things that really have artistic merit as much as one can guess. 

[01:07:22.25]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, you've been a trustee of the Museum since, what, 1953? 

[01:07:27.65]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I was made a trustee of the Museum after I was appointed chairman of the Junior Council. Not at the very beginning, but after I had been for about a year or so. First, I used to sit at the board meetings just ex officio to report what we were doing from time to time. And then, after a while, I was elected an official member. And after that, it became rather policy to try to have a member of the Junior—the head of the Junior Council and head of International Council of trustees. And we have managed to do that. 

[01:08:14.32]

We also, with the International Council have a board of the Council who are from other cities. They're a smaller group of the Council, of particularly interesting ones. And they meet with the Museum board once a year at their annual meeting. They're invited to come and sit in on the board. You know, a lot of these people really do enjoy participating in a New York museum. And they feel it's kind of a their—

[01:08:48.04]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Special. 

[01:08:48.67]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  —first cousin, anyway to their own. 

[01:08:51.42]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  That's very good, because I think it's—a museum director I was talking to recently said, he's a trustee of two museums out of New York. And he said it's really very good for museums—this one [inaudible] every couple of years changes their museum trustees. Another out-of-town museum man is appointed trustee. And he said it's very good. He loved it, because it shows him what another museum's problems are. And it shows the people in another city that even a big New York museum has the same problem as all these. So his description of it was very, very interesting. 

[01:09:36.35]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, and it's a very, very good thing, I think, for laymen to hear about other museum's problems. For instance, when we met there with so many of the Tate people, I remember being absolutely astonished. That really is a wonderful Museum. They've got superb things. They have seven staff members, I mean, not counting secretaries and guards. 

[01:10:07.76]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Curatorial. 

[01:10:08.56]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER: Curatorial—seven, they run that museum on. And they're all paid by the government. So I'm sure they get very low salaries. Such a dedicated group. And you know, it just makes you realize, it gives you a sort of sense of comparative proportion. 

[01:10:30.00]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  I was amazed to hear yesterday that the French government announced the number of people that visited the Louvre last year, which was about a million. 

[01:10:40.53]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yeah, it's amazing. 

[01:10:42.93]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  And it's so few, you know? 

[01:10:44.79]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  I know. Well, the Met has more than that. 

[01:10:48.08]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, tremendous. [Inaudible] Museum of Modern Art. 

[01:10:51.85]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, you know, I think it's really fascinating what's happening in this country. And it's one of the things that's making our world very difficult, in the museum world, to really know what the function of a museum is today. I mean, we're in the middle of it at the Modern Museum. We're just—I think we're particularly a target for—we're kind of symbolic of a museum that should belong to the people because we're of today. 

[01:11:30.93]

And we ought to be out on the sidewalks, a lot of people say. And we should have our doors open in every possible way. And yet, you've got to keep some kind of sense of history in your mind that museums do have other duties besides educating the public. And you and I could go on on this subject forever, but it is perfectly fascinating. I don't think there's anything more interesting than being involved in an institution of the arts today. It's very, very similar to being involved in a university. 

[01:12:16.34]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Well, how active is one as a trustee in the Museum of Modern Art? 

[01:12:23.24]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Oh, very. 

[01:12:23.36]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Do the trustees meet frequently? 

[01:12:25.67]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yeah, we meet once a month. 

[01:12:27.29]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Once a month. 

[01:12:28.33]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  More often recently. [They laugh.] It's a very, very unusual institution. I've never been on another museum board, so I don't know. But I gather that we are a very active group and very, very involved. We have a very strong board, but they're not only just strong, but they are also—I mean, they're strong financially. And of course, this makes us a target also as kind of an establishment, really. But they are all really, basically interested in art. And they're not on it just as figureheads. And there are one or two who we still have who don't come to meetings, but they're still very loyal, and they contribute. They believe in it. They don't participate. But most of the trustees really do. 

[01:13:33.54]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Some of the trustees have been on it for decades. 

[01:13:35.60]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  That's right. They have. And they're really—well, I don't know any organization in this field that is so close to the problems. And so the staff are such a remarkable group of people—so talented, so dedicated. They have been over the years now. Of course, some of our major pillars are retired now, so we're kind of at a crossroads. We're not probably going to find the kind of lifetime dedication that Alfred Barr gave to the Museum, that René d'Harnoncourt gave while he was there. Monroe Wheeler. Those men, their whole lives have been really in building up the museums. 

[01:14:31.78]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  It's interesting that the people who really have the ultimate museum quality do tend to spend all of their time at the museum once they reach a certain level in their career, certainly. They're just always there. It's a 48-hour a day job. 

[01:14:55.13]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  You see, the Museum of Modern Art does a kind of program that I don't know of any other museum that tries to do as much. And this is why it's such a killing job now for the director. It's almost as bad as the President of the United States [laughs] in that it's—

[01:15:13.72]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  So diversified. 

[01:15:14.69]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  —so diversified. I'm not sure that it's possible, really. But in the first place, we're supposed to be a museum of our times. So we have the film. The film is more and more important to art. We have photography, which has always, in recent years been an important art, in our estimation. We have architecture and design, which most museums don't try to cope with. And we have painting and sculpture. And we have graphics and print. Well, that should be part of the painting and sculpture department. 

[01:16:00.87]

But it's really a three-ring circus. And then on top of that, you get running through all those departments, the permanent collection, collection of china and pots and pans, and typewriters and that sort of thing. And then we have, on top of that, our continually—continual series of exhibitions, which we make up ourselves and send around. Now, the Metropolitan doesn't do that. It has an enormous collection, which is a huge, huge job. But only during their anniversary year have they had all these temporary exhibitions. And I'm sure they don't intend to keep on with the rate—

[01:16:55.48]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  No, they can't. 

[01:16:56.99]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  But we do. This has been part of our continual program. And to have all that going on in one museum—and we've supplied, as you know, exhibitions throughout America for years, traveling shows that you could rent. 

[01:17:14.18]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Dozens and dozens. 

[01:17:15.48]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And we've shared exhibitions with people, other museums. It really is a madhouse all the time. It's just so exciting. 

[01:17:27.17]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Are the trustees very involved directly in any of these things? Or do they really set policy and watch the budget and things of that nature? 

[01:17:38.24]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, it's like any other. It's more like a college board than anything I can think of. They have—there's a house committee that sees that the member's department and the restaurants are running well, and the building is kept clean, and so on. It just supervises the staff and encourages them. And there's a big committee, which has to do with the whole program, exhibitions program. 

[01:18:08.08]

And there's the finance committee. And we have all our businessmen helping us on that. And there is a membership committee that keeps trying to think of ways of increasing our membership and keeping track, getting more corporate members, for instance. All the trustees have to pull their weight in one way or another. 

[01:18:33.07]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  They really have to do something. 

[01:18:34.13]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yeah, we're all on two or three committees. 

[01:18:36.15]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:18:41.31]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  So you get pretty much involved in certain places that interest you. Then we have photography committee, architecture committee. People that are interested in different arts, sort of like visiting committees. 

[01:18:56.18]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. That's interesting because some of the museums around the country I know have tried to make their trustees people who support the Museum and come twice a year, or four times a year for meetings. 

[01:19:12.68]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  They don't want them to get too involved. And we've been very—watching difficulties that some other museums have had where the trustees have gotten too powerful, too meddling into the artistic fields. Now, I think we've done pretty well on that. We've tried. Well, you remember the big mess they had out of Los Angeles when everybody started resigning. 

[01:19:43.76]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, yes. 

[01:19:44.73]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And that, I think, was a case of several trustees getting too dominant in the artistic direction of the Museum. And that is a fatal mistake. But now there are so many problems that really aren't just artistic, that are administrative, financial, and political, that a board of trustees really do need to give guidance on. Don't you think so? 

[01:20:17.17]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  I think so. You know, I'm very wary of all the political attitudes and things museums are getting involved with because I think that—study the history of the artist and what happens to him. He ends up generally being used by somebody and gets nothing out of it. 

[01:20:39.98]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yeah. 

[01:20:41.89]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  I look at the signs and talk to the people involved with that I find that I think maybe that's what's going to happen to the museums. They're going to be used by organizations who have no art or cultural influence, but have political aspirations of various kind. No matter which way it goes, museums are going to lose. 

[01:21:05.81]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And of course, a contemporary museum, whatever that might be, it is much more the subject of this kind of pressure. 

[01:21:16.93]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, sure. 

[01:21:17.41]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  This is where John Hightower is really just right on the front line. The day after he came in, these people arrived and said, we're going to close the Museum in protest to the Cambodian [emergency –Ed.], I think it was, and the shooting of [the Kent State –Ed.] students. And I don't know if you noticed what he did, but I thought it was a brilliant move when he hadn't even had a chance to sit down in his director's chair. [They laugh.]

[01:21:49.40]

He just turned around and said, "I don't believe in closing museums in times of stress and unhappiness. I think they're places of refuge and contemplation and that people should be able to come in and get their thoughts balanced. And we're not going to close the Museum. We're going to open it free tomorrow." These people came to him and said, "If you don't close it, we'll close it for you." 

[01:22:14.61]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Yeah. 

[01:22:16.67]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I thought that was brilliant because just a month before they'd all been forcing us to open free, which of course, is something we've wanted to do for years. But it costs [approximately –Ed.] $40,000 to open the Museum free for one day a week [for six months –Ed.]. […] You have to pay all the guards, and we lose our gate receipts. […]

[01:22:55.72]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  That's interesting, because saying that that—it costs the Metropolitan $1,000 an hour to stay open after their normal hours—

[01:23:07.89]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, you see, it's the guards; the guards, and the lighting. 

[01:23:12.23]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Sure. Lighting, and all those—oh, yeah. It's all the things you don't see that's so expensive, heat, lights. 

[01:23:19.76]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I'm glad we did it. We've been doing it one day a week. And we said we'd do it for six months and see if we could possibly afford it. We have the most colossal deficit. We have no business to be doing it. But on the other hand, these are unusual times. But I thought Hightower was just great when he just turned the tables on them and said, "Well, you told us we should be open. So now we're going to stay open for this occasion, free." They couldn't say a word. 

[01:23:51.44]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's going to be very interesting to see what does happen. I think the summer this year will indicate some change. I know a lot of the art groups now are sort of disbanding anyway for the summer. 

[01:24:06.77]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. Well, I think we have to be very, very understanding, but very firm, also and keep to what a museum is for and not get all mixed up in politics. I just think that'll be the end of museums, as you've said. 

[01:24:26.16]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Oh, sure. How are we doing on time? 

[01:24:29.12]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, I think I will—I think I ought to be on my way to the country. I think you probably need a rest, anyway. 

[01:24:36.24]

[END OF TRACK AAA_rockef70_8947_m]

[00:00:25.38]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Okay, I think that would be good. 

[00:00:27.83]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yeah. 

[00:00:27.95]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Let me just put the date on here again, August 19th. This is reel two. Paul Cummings talking with Blanchette Rockefeller. 

It seems to be working. That's a terrible [inaudible]. Could we start then with it again and repeat a little on—

[00:00:45.12]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  How I ever came to be president? Well, it was a question of finding someone at a rather crisis time when we were just about to start on a big $25 million drive for more space, a new wing to be added to the Museum, and funds for endowment. Up to that point, the Museum had never really had any appreciable endowment, only a few million dollars, compared to our sister museum, the Metropolitan, which is highly endowed. It seemed that if this was to last for any length of time and survive financial crises and so on, that we must have more strength behind us. And also the inflationary trend had already started even then, and the whole question of salaries and costs were going up quietly but steadily. 

[00:01:56.35]

So we had this $25 million drive to achieve, and we had suddenly our top officers and leaders, the men on the board were all taken away either by politics or by the diplomatic corps to serve the country. And it left a sort of group of very loyal trustees, but people who weren't in a position to be able to take the time for the president's job. And so I, being related to two of the trustees, and having been connected with the museum for a long time and fairly knowledgeable about it, was offered the job. And I must say, I had never thought that I would get into anything quite so challenging. 

[00:02:55.17]

But it was a very, very exciting experience for me. And most of the three years that I was president was spent in fundraising, trying to keep things going, the exhibitions and so on, by backing up the staff. Of course, the president's job in a museum like ours is largely keeping the lay supporters of the Museum interested and active and informed, and backing up the staff with the kind of understanding and knowledge of what they're trying to do, and acting as a go-between between them and the trustees. 

[00:03:43.30]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Do the trustees have a great deal to say about actual things—I think you said there are things that are house committees—

[00:03:51.99]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. 

[00:03:52.32]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  —committees on finance; a committee on one thing and the other. Do they really get involved with that, or do they just get staff reports? 

[00:04:01.33]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  No, they really get involved. I would say that the Museum of Modern Art perhaps has a more working board of trustees than any museum that I would know about. It's been a small board until just recently. It has been enlarged in the last year. But it was only 24, and that was by our charter from the state, was to have 24 members. And it was an educational institution from the beginning, because we've always had an art—a teaching department, which is under the leadership of Victor d'Amico. And it was mostly for teaching teachers of art, but it involved having small children and many art students. 

[00:04:54.93]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  There was an adult education program at one time. 

[00:04:56.38]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Adult education program. And the children's classes were used to demonstrate how to teach small children. It was really for the purpose of training teachers. The Museum never meant to get into an art school as such, but it has often been misunderstood. 

[00:05:18.14]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Right. Yes, I totally misunderstood what the whole thing was. And now it makes sense. 

[00:05:22.69]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. You see, and they had observation. People could come and watch the classes. And this was the real thing. And then the other thing that the department did, they had these annual, or every two years, big conferences of art teachers from all over the country. They had symposiums, and educational discussions and so on. I think they really performed a great service. Still is very much needed, because the art in most schools is really dreadful. But anyway—

[00:06:05.23]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, how, for example—let me ask you a rather loaded question. How are the trustees about the hiring of curators and people like that? Are they involved with that or is that done by the director? And then—

[00:06:17.68]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  That is done by the director, yes. I would say that the trustees have been very active in helping to promote the Museum, to raise money, to call it to the attention of the public, using their influence to bring things about, but that they in general have been quite wise about not trying to interfere with curatorial policy. Occasionally, there will be a criticism or a discussion, and something will be brought up to be proposed to the board if it seems as though it might be controversial. But I think there's never been any tendency in the Museum of Modern Art for the trustees to take over the management of the Museum. And I know this has been the case in some other museums. 

[00:07:21.91]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Quite a few have had that. 

[00:07:23.20]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yeah. 

[00:07:23.66]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Or they had two or three strong trustees who dominated. 

[00:07:26.60]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  That's right. Who have wanted, really, to be the professionals. They've thought of themselves as professionals. And I don't believe, that in my knowledge of the Museum's history there could almost have been professionals who were officers. But [inaudible].

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Who would they be?

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, Conger Goodyear was president of the Museum during the war years, World War II. [Not accurate. Goodyear resigned in 1939. Stephen Clark was president during the war years. –Ed.] And he was an extremely knowledgeable man. He was a collector, but highly knowledgeable. And then James Soby, who was one of our trustees, actually ran the Museum as director for a short while when Alfred Barr was away. [He was never "away." –Ed.] So we've had several people—

[00:08:14.06]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  He did lots of exhibitions. 

[00:08:15.88]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Oh, well, then he's done a lot, yes. And he's done books for us, publications. He's really professional in his—But he has always technically been a trustee. And you see, our top staff people, the director—we've had four top staff people who are members of the board of trustees, voting members—Alfred Barr, Rene d'Harnoncourt, Monroe Wheeler, and Porter McCray was a trustee. He was head of all the circulating exhibitions for a long time. And those four men were really mingled with the trustees. 

[00:08:58.17]

Now, I don't know enough about management problems, but the Museum at that time was small enough and intimate enough so that it was felt that if the top staff people were also trustees, that there would be a unity of attitude and understanding, and that you wouldn't get this kind of two camps of the trustees and the professionals facing each other. And I think it did work that way for a long time. 

[00:09:31.16]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  You think there's been a change since it's become so large? 

[00:09:34.50]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, it's been—it's hard to know. We've had such a bad three or four years where our leadership was aging. I mean, Rene and Alfred were beginning to slow down, and then we hadn't really found the right people to take over from them. And the change in times and the change in attitudes of museum professionals. Those men really gave their lives in a way that one could never expect again, I guess. The devotion, the hours they spent, the unselfishness, never asking for higher salaries. I mean, when you look back on it, they were almost allowed to be imposed on because of their loyalty. 

[00:10:34.77]

And now, there's none of that. People are very interested in what they're going to be paid. It's an old museum now. It's not a new, fragile thing that's just been created that has to be nurtured. And there isn't the sense—it's part of the establishment. But some of us who knew those men and saw them working, we really do look back on those days as something very inspiring. 

[00:11:07.68]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  But it's very interesting. I've known the people who one might even think are the best museum directors always seem to be in the museum. 

[00:11:17.88]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  I know. 

[00:11:18.21]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Sundays and holidays. 

[00:11:19.72]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  I know it. 

[00:11:20.43]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  They're always there. 

[00:11:21.27]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  It's never-ending. And so many activities of a museum, if it's a really good museum and brings the community in, it lasts until 11:00 and 12:00 at night. They go home, and some of them don't even go home. They take a shower and change their clothes and there they are, ready to receive. And the Museum of Modern Art has always been an institution that had so much going on in it because it not only was having exhibitions within its walls, it was creating exhibitions all the time to send out to other museums. 

[00:12:02.03]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  The lectures and concerts, and so on. 

[00:12:03.55]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  And then the many different fields that it covers. I mean, most museums are just fine arts and maybe some decorative arts, but never photography, and film, and design, and everything. It's the works, really. 

[00:12:21.52]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, how did—it's funny. I have strange questions, like, are the trustees involved at all in the scholarship of the Museum. Obviously, that's a staff problem. But were there many things that came out of trustee meetings, as far as exhibitions or very well-known projects? Or were they really staff ideas that were approved of by the trustees, and they were then sent back? 

[00:12:57.24]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  No, I think that some of our most outstanding exhibitions have come—there's been a very good interchange of ideas between the knowledgeable trustees. I mean, there's a group of trustees who really know a lot about art. And then there's a group who are just interested and excited about it, but are not in a position to carry on an intelligent conversation with one of the curators about whether we should have an exhibition of Mondrian at such and such a time, or have somebody else. 

[00:13:39.52]

But those group, those trustees who really had that knowledge, I think, batted ideas back and forth in a very friendly and a very creative way with the staff. And usually, the final result kind of came from a friendly consensus of opinion. And if the staff would feel strongly that one should come ahead of the other, then it would be settled that way. But the other one would come—it would seem that it would come later. 

[00:14:11.23]

And one of the considerations, of course, the trustees have had to worry about more than the staff was the financial side of the Museum, and where the money was going to come from. And the Museum of Modern Art has had, because of its policy of—[cross talk] because of its policy of admissions, charging admissions, has had to think quite a lot about what exhibitions it has in terms of drawing the public. And the trustees have been particularly sensitive [about exhibitions –Ed.]. 

[00:15:05.01]

That's a bad—a bad reel, I guess. 

[00:15:11.25]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  What about things like the acquisitions, which, of course, always interest everyone, how things are selected? 

[00:15:19.06]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, that's a very interesting process, and I wish I really could give you an intelligent analysis of how it happens. There is an acquisitions committee of trustees and other invited members who are not necessarily trustees, but who are knowledgeable people for one reason or another. And a trustee is always chairman of it, usually one of those trustees whom I mentioned who are particularly knowledgeable about art. Walter Bareiss—Jim Soby was chairman for many years, and now Walter Bareiss is, who is very close to professional in his knowledge of modern art.

[Recorder stops; restarts.]

[00:16:16.33]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  It's going to work. [Laughs.]

[00:16:20.47]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  So we had these meetings once a month, and the curators bring forward works of art that have been proposed by the different members of the staff, or by people who can be trustees, or friends of the Museum, or people who would like to offer paintings to the Museum. They come in all different ways. 

[00:16:49.31]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Yeah. Were you on the acquisitions committee? 

[00:16:50.85]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes, I've been on it for a long time. And it's one of those things that I would hate to give up. I just enjoy it more than anything. And I really—

[00:17:01.74]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  That's what Soby said. He said, some of the best fights he's had [have been with the acquisitions committee –Ed.]

[00:17:06.12]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Oh, yes, it's really terrific. And it's pretty much the heart of the painting and sculpture life of the Museum. Of course, the exhibitions that we show are temporary exhibitions, and those aren't necessarily going to be acquired by the Museum. 

[00:17:24.18]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Was it through the acquisition committee or the trustees, a plan of acquisitions ever developed, I mean, period beyond which you don't buy things? Back in 1870 or '80 or something like that, one doesn't go older. 

[00:17:44.34]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  No, it's—well, it started, of course, when the Museum was founded, and the idea was they were acquiring contemporary pictures. But they showed pictures of the Impressionist and post-Impressionist school for the first time, really, in New York—Fauve paintings and so on. And then people began to give us a few. And of course, the Lillie Bliss collection, which was the sort of central core of the first part of the permanent collection, was largely from that period of paintings, some Picassos, but mostly post-Impressionism. 

[00:18:29.57]

So from then on, we worked forward. But lately, there's been a tendency to also work backwards because it gradually developed that certain artists were kind of like the grandfathers of the Contemporary movement, and one couldn't really show an exhibition of the roots of Modern Art without having—and Rodin is one of the primary examples. 

Since my day in the Museum, Rodins have been acquired, which they wouldn't have had before, on the theory that he was such a kind of a special person in his influence and his concept. But he had an absolutely overwhelming interest on all sculpture that followed. And there are a few other artists who are often discussed in this category. The trouble is they're so expensive now. The Museum can't buy them even if they wanted to. 

[00:19:41.08]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, that's the problem. 

[00:19:43.15]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  But now what we do from here is the question, because we're really getting a full house, as far as space goes. And the art is getting so large and so unshowable. 

[00:19:58.27]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  And cumbersome, and everything else. 

[00:19:59.83]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. And it seems that the artists are even interested in not having it shown. They are creating art which can't be shown, like the earthworks and the minimal sculpture things and so on. You can't have a collection with very many of those things in it. And I think this last show—have you seen the information show at the Museum? Well, I mean, there really isn't anything there that needs to be preserved. It's more ideas than works of art. So we're coming to a stage in things where it's very hard to know whether you need a new wing or not. [They laugh.]

[00:20:45.18]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, maybe one needs more library shelves for information to go on. 

[00:20:48.95]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. But I think you're talking to me at a period when I don't know what I think, and I don't think anyone else does either. They're certainly worrying about it and thinking about it a lot. 

[00:21:02.19]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, the artists have the same problem, because they find that they're making philosophical gestures or something, and they find that they don't any longer have a product to sell. 

[00:21:19.71]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  No. 

[00:21:19.86]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  They're not making a drawing or a painting or a sculpture, but they're doing some kind of grand gesture. And it frequently lasts as long as the gesture takes. So it's given them a lot of economic trouble as well as the museums across the country just don't know what to do with it. And collectors who are who are amused by it, but there again, they don't want to pay a lot of money just to have a photograph of something that happened. 

[00:21:54.38]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Well, it's awfully hard to know whether the artists are really protesting in a quiet, kind of hidden way that they—I have a feeling, and I have read in many places that they really resent the very materialistic attitude that our civilization in this country, and perhaps in Europe, too, have developed toward works of art, that they have become commodities rather—

[00:22:29.63]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Yeah. 

[00:22:29.78]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  You see, and that there's the agents are all going to get a cut on the sale. And the idea is to get something to sell to somebody. And the artists have a feeling of such personal identification with these things that they paint and sculpt and make, that I think this hurts them and makes them feel that it's the wrong emphasis. I'm talking about what some of the more violent protesters are saying out loud.

[00:23:02.90]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, I know. I hear the same thing, but I think traditionally, it's been the artist's cry. And the [inaudible] art forever. And this one and that one, and you can always go back. And then you find other artists who made a great fortune, some of them, by catering to a certain kind of public, and turning out masses and masses of whatever they wanted. I think it's a problem that isn't going to change. I think it's—

[00:23:36.18]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  It sort of comes in waves through history, I guess. 

[00:23:38.37]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Well, it comes in waves, but it's always there. I think the size changes. But one artist, who was an older fellow, told me—

[Recorder stops; restarts.]

[00:23:53.14]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Just give up and have a nice conversation. 

[00:23:55.23]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  [They laugh.] I don't know what's wrong with that thing. But he finally after—realized that he was making something that lots and lots of people would look at, but very few people would ever own. 

[00:24:16.18]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  Yes. 

[00:24:17.17]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  And it was very hard for him, because he'd been very active in the '30s in advanced politics or something. 

[00:24:25.80]

BLANCHETTE ROCKEFELLER:  He really had to live on something. 

[00:24:27.93]

PAUL CUMMINGS:  Yeah. And all of a sudden, the realization, this is really what was happening. It's what really has always happened with the artist and his art. It was a problem for them. 

I don't know, maybe the reel is just—

[END OF TRACK AAA_rockef70_8948_m]

[END OF INTERVIEW.]