An Evening at the Old Whitney

TO THE OLD Whitney Museum down on 8th Street, now home to the New York Studio School, which held a panel discussion to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the New Criterion. An interesting chat between Hilton Kramer, who left the New York Times to found the magazine in 1982, Karen Wilkin, one of our regular art critics, and James Panero, managing editor and art critic, all moderated by Michael J. Lewis of Williams College. The panel discussion covered myriad subjects related to art, from art criticism to the impossibility of an avant-garde in today’s culture of anything-goes to whether the New Criterion‘s ‘view’ of art can be considered part of any particular school of thought. Hilton had some particularly choice moments.

The building is a particularly nebulous one with many strange nooks and crannies, which can perhaps be explained by the fact that it is actually four townhouses gradually combined over a period of time. The Whitney Museum of American Art, of course, was founded in the 1930s by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and was housed in these merged townhouses until moving to the specially-designed home at Madison and 75th in 1966 — widely agreed to be the ugliest building on the entire Upper East Side.

Among the nooks and crannies previously mentioned, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s former studio in the old mews building provided an excellent location for the dinner held afterwards, to which the participants, organizers, and a number of hangers-on (including yours truly) were invited. I sat between Gabbe, the New Criterion‘s former Editorial Assistant now working for the Studio School, and Joseph, an art student from outside Canterbury in Kent whose grandmother and grandfather both taught at the Studio School. Joseph and I discussed the beauty of the Somerset countryside, and I confessed I’d buy a cottage and move there in a second were it possible. The inimitable David Yezzi sat across the table and guided much of the conversation on our leg of the three tables, which had been arranged in a U-formation. A little later, I chatted with the artist seated to Gabbe’s left, who had been born in Latvia, with childhood spent in Baghdad, Italy, and England, before settling down in New York at the age of seven. We discussed the glories of Eastern Europe and the linguistic intricacies thereof. During dessert, however, I got on to architecture with the amiable Michael J. Lewis. I sung the praises of Audubon Terrace, one of my favorite spaces in all New York, which he (a Philadelphian) had only stumbled upon for the first time a month ago, and also of the nearby sculpted tomb of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, the greatest of all American architects.

Time waits for no man, however, and I managed to catch a late train back home from Grand Central. Alighting at Bronxville, I walked through the misty streets where the spherical streetlamps cast an eerie glow against the limestone façades of the shops. Home before midnight, and time for rest. Tommorrow, aside from being the feast of Saint Andrew, is Stefan Beck’s last day at the New Criterion. Needless to say, commemorative festivities are in order, and an alcoholic concoction known as ‘batch’ is to be brewed. It will not, I imagine, be for the faint of heart.

Elsewhere, the Austrian navy is no more.

Instagram: @andcusack

Most Recent Posts

• Letters Patent May 8, 2024
• Bicycle Rack April 29, 2024
• Burns Tower April 19, 2024
• Patrick in Parliament March 18, 2024
• Articles of Note: 13 March 2024 March 13, 2024

Most Recent Comments

• Ian Eastwood on St. Alban’s College: 1907-2007
• Una Kinneen on No. 82, Eaton Square
• Andrew Cusack on Cambridge
• Gousset van Heel on Articles of Note: 13 March 2024
• LG Clark on Cambridge
• LG Clark on Taken on Trust
• Stephen Klimczuk-Massion on Articles of Note: 13 March 2024
• A Stiubhard of Torphichen and Our Creator on The Sovereign Scotch Order of Whisky
• Fitz on Cambridge
• Paul Thomas on A Cape Dutch Garden at Chelsea

Book Wishlist

Monthly Archives

Categories