Henry Geldzahler's many professional accomplishments alone would have made him a formidable presence on the cultural scene of New York City for the last 35 years. Henry came to the city in 1960 as an associate curator in the American Paintings Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which placed him in the heart of the cultural life of the city that had just replaced Paris as the center of the international art world. He rose to become the first head of the Contemporary Art Department at the Met, in the process curating over twenty exhibitions including such artists as Clyfford Still, David Smith, Ellsworth Kelly and David Hockney. Many of the Met's finest acquisitions in the contemporary field came from Henry's shows. But his greatest achievement, created as a celebration of the Met's centenary, was New York Painting and Sculpture 1940-1970.
The first blockbuster exhibition of contemporary art, New York Painting and Sculpture 1940-1970 showed all of the major practitioners of the New York School side by side for the first time. Geldzahler had persuaded the Museum to open all of the European painting galleries to the show, and it was a tremendous success, critically and with the public. The catalogue, with an essay by Henry and others by all of the leading critics of the day, became a classic chronicle of the art of the time.
In 1978, after an eighteen year tenure at the Met, Henry was appointed by Mayor Edward Koch to the post of Cultural Commissioner of the City of New York. Geldzahler campaigned for funds for cultural institutions throughout the city, working as hard to get funds for the Bronx Center for the Arts as for Lincoln Center. Henry had already had a taste of politics--not only at Thomas Hoving's Met (when he left, Henry said with characteristic wit that he thought it was about time to get out of politics), but also as the first Director of the Visual Arts programs at the newly formed National Endowments for the Arts in 1967. He helped establish such programs as Art in Public Places and direct grants to artists, changing the nature of the Federal government's patronage of art and artists and creating the impetus for the tremendous growth exhibited by all sectors of the visual and performing arts in the last quarter century.
Beyond his professional accomplishments, Henry was one of that rare breed: a high aesthete. Intellectual, a marvelous writer and rapier wit, Henry was always open to the new--a quality which endeared him to three generations of artists and collectors. A lover of literature, theatre, music and, above all, opera, Henry was prophetic but also believed deeply in tradition. He had an abiding belief in young talent, but would champion an older artist whose work had fallen out of fashion but who Henry felt still merited his--and thus our--attention. Some of what he accomplished has been challenged, but the sum of his acheivement--the complex cultural center that New York is--remains beholden to his vision and love of art.
CARL ANDRE (b.1934)
FeLL
Details
CARL ANDRE (b.1934)
FeLL
two elements--steel
each: 5 x 2 x 2in. (12.7 x 5.2 x 5.2cm.)
overall: 7 x 5 x 2in. (17.8 x 12.7 x 5.2cm.)
Executed in 1961. This work will be sold with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.
FeLL
two elements--steel
each: 5 x 2 x 2in. (12.7 x 5.2 x 5.2cm.)
overall: 7 x 5 x 2in. (17.8 x 12.7 x 5.2cm.)
Executed in 1961. This work will be sold with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.
Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist.