Wilbur Ross Says Impeachment Hearings Fit With His Magritte
Wilbur Ross Says Impeachment Hearings Fit With His Magritte
(Bloomberg) -- At a benefit for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Thursday night, the conversations were polite and art-centric, even when they concerned politics.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said government service has changed his appreciation of his art collection.
“The world of Washington is very surreal, so Magritte fits in, ” Ross said. “Especially the impeachment hearings -- they are the most surreal.”
Maureen Chilton, standing with Thomas Jayne, the designer who helped restore her country estate in Dorset, said “of course” she’d been closely following the British election. The results had come in just as bartenders were setting up for the Met’s party.
As for the results, she dwelled on the big picture, not Brexit. “Both Britain and the U.S. are nations of fortitude, humility and hopefully a lot of humanity,” Chilton said.
Along with her husband Richard, a Met trustee, one of Chilton’s passions is the museum’s galleries of British decorative arts and design. They’re reopening in February after renovation, one of dozens of projects next year celebrating the Met’s 150th anniversary.
While 2020 will also bring a presidential election in the U.S., the Met’s leaders made a point of separating the anniversary events from current affairs.
“The Met demonstrates the longevity of an institution that is not subject to the vagaries of politics,” said Sheena Wagstaff, chairman of modern and contemporary art. “When so much of the world is in so much disarray, it’s incredibly comforting and reaffirming that art, in all of its manifestations, continues as a result of great organizations like the museum.”
And yet the museum is not only historical. “The museum lives in our time, not simply relives other times,” Met Director Max Hollein said.
The gala raised $2.5 million with dinner in the Temple of Dendur for about 350 guests, including Blair Effron, Leonard Lauder, Milly and Arne Glimcher, John Rosenwald, Ajit Jain and David Schiff.
Robert McDuffie played a 1711 Stradivari from the Met’s collection during the meal of warm lobster salad, beef with fork-crushed buttterball potatoes and warm chocolate pudding cake, “curated” by Gramercy Tavern Executive Chef Michael Anthony.
The event brought together many trustees who donated works to mark the anniversary. Ann Tenenbaum’s gift of more than 60 photographs will go on view in March. Barrie Wigmore, an author of books on the 1929 crash and the 1980s securities markets, has enabled an installation recalling the interiors of his home, filled with objects of the Gilded Age.
The Met’s festivities include events on April 13, the museum’s actual anniversary.
Of course, there are still a few days of 2019 to get through -- to make charitable donations, give tips to doormen, see an Inca tapestry at the Met -- and to spend time reflecting.
“The highlight of my year was the New Yorker review of the Charles Ray show” at his foundation in Chelsea, Two Sigma’s Tom Hill said.
“He got to pick any sculpture from our collection, and he chose Renaissance and Baroque bronzes,” Hill added, before going to the bar to order a Bombay Sapphire gin and tonic for himself and a sparkling water for his wife.
To contact the reporter on this story: Amanda Gordon in New York at agordon01@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill, Peter Eichenbaum
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