|
|
 |
 |
|
The Frick Collection
2011 Autumn Dinner |
|
|
Director Emerita Anne L. Poulet, Frick Director Ian Wardropper, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees Margot Bogert.
|
 |
On Monday, October 17, 2011 The Frick Collection honored Director Emerita Anne L. Poulet at the Frick's Autumn Dinner. Director Emerita Anne L. Poulet retired from The Frick Collection at the end of September. Principal among the long list of achievements associated with her leadership is a strong program of critically acclaimed exhibitions and publications, imaginative curatorial initiatives, and expanded educational offerings. Under her stewardship, the Frick Art Reference Library’s mission to serve scholars has been enhanced by the establishment of the Center for the History of Collecting. She has also directed a sensitive, systematic refurbishment of the 1914 mansion’s galleries, cited as a model for museum custodianship.
Event Chairmen Elizabeth Eveillard and Aso O. Tavitian, Director Emerita Anne L. Poulet, and Event Chairmen Barbara Reibel and James S. Reibel, M.D.
Elizabeth and Jean-Marie Eveillard, Barbara and James Reibel M.D., and Aso O. Tavitian were the Benefit Chairmen. Proceeds for this event help to support the full range of programs of The Frick Collection, including educational and curatorial initiatives, and the Frick Art Reference Library. This year, the level of support raised was particularly strong at $1,100,000 and 250 attendees.
The evening began in the majestic Garden Court, where cocktails were served. The downstairs galleries were open so that guests could enjoy the major fall exhibition Picasso’s Drawings, 1890–1921, Reinventing Tradition. Supporters also wandered through the remarkable permanent collection galleries in the Frick mansion. There, they experienced a grand domestic setting reminiscent of European noble houses and encountered masterpieces from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century. Of special note were paintings by Bellini, Constable, Fragonard, Gainsborough, Goya, El Greco, Holbein, Ingres, Monet, Rembrandt, Titian, Turner, Velázquez, Vermeer, , and others. Mr. Frick’s superb examples of French eighteenth-century furniture, Italian Renaissance bronzes, and Limoges enamels brought a special ambiance to the galleries as well.
Guests dine in the Oval Room.
Dinner was served in three magnificent, dramatically-lit galleries (no other event at The Frick Collection includes a dinner in this portion of the museum). Banquet tables ran the length of the mansion’s signature West Gallery, where guests enjoyed paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Veronese, Turner, and others. Supporters in the more intimate Oval Room enjoyed dining at round tables surrounded by full-length portraits by Van Dyck as well as the celebrated painting of Philip IV by Velázquez. Those seated in the East Gallery dined among several Spanish, and Spanish-inspired works, such as Goya’s masterpiece The Forge and his portraits of Don Pedro, Duque de Osuna and Doña María Martínez de Puga. Also in the room were El Greco’s Vincenzo Anastagi and Manet’s Bullfight.
The Dinner catered by Sonnier & Castle included Celery Root Velouté with Black Truffle and Toasted Brioche, Loin of Veal with Hen of the Woods Mushroom Fricassée, and Warm Chocolate Cake with Raspberries. Wine was donated by The Four Graces and Frederick Wildman & Sons. Jerry Sibal Design Fusion created a “classic with a twist” in creating seasonal jewel-toned floral centerpieces. He illuminated the tables with five-arm crystal candelabra. In beveled mirror glass containers he arranged exotic hot pink Vanda and Mokara orchids, fragrant Free-Spirit and hot pink roses, cymbidium orchids, and Dutch pink hydrangeas. Round antique mercury glass votives cast an additional glow across the tables. Fuschia brocade tablecloths covered long and circular tables. Frick Horticulturist Galen Lee placed in the Garden Court plantings a mixture of tropical and Bird’s Nest ferns, as well as white Phalaenopsis and Dendrobium orchids.
Remarks occurred after the main course. Chairman of the Board of Trustees Margot Bogert spoke briefly at a podium in the East Gallery offering many warms words about Director Emerita Anne Poulet, commenting that this evening’s tribute was one of the most successful such benefits yet, a sign of the great esteem in which our honoree is held. Bogert then introduced, at the other end of the building on a podium in the West Gallery, the Frick’s new Director Ian Wardropper. He began with some warm personal comments, recalling the ways he and Anne intersected throughout their careers, noting that she always seemed to be a step ahead of him. …from grad school at the Institute and onward. He drew gentle laughter when he discussed being interviewed by Anne Poulet for a job at the MFA, and being then graciously turned down (he was clearly focused on sculpture at the time, and she was really looking for a decorative arts historian). Wardropper discussed many of her fine achievements before the Frick and the many at and for the Frick, from remarkable acquisitions to the appointment of the institution’s first curator of decorative arts, the care of the building and collections to the upcoming inauguration of the new Portico Gallery, to digitization projects at the Library and the establishment of the Center for the History of Collecting, to the high and inspirational standards she set and upheld for the institution as a whole. Ian Wardropper then welcomed honoree Anne Poulet to the podium and presented her with a beautifully engraved silver salver, as a tribute to her. She joined him, giving thanks to the two Board members under whom she served, Helen Clay Chace and Margot Bogert, the board itself, and the staff. Her warm comments were followed by applause…and then after a calm pause…a spontaneous and heartfelt standing ovation from the 250 guests assembled.
Guests dine in the East Gallery.
Guests included: Joan Taub Ades and Alan M. Ades, Julian Agnew, Irene R. Aitken, Cetie Nippert Ames and Anthony Ames, Colin B. Bailey, Constance and John P. Birklelund, Sofia and Peter P. Blanchard (great grandson of Henry Clay Frick), Cynthia Boardman, Margot and Jerry Bogert (Chairman of the Board of Trustees), W. M. Brady, Teresa and David Bull, Stephen Bury, Edward Lee Cave, Helen Clay Chase (great granddaughter of Henry Clay Frick) and Minturn Chace, David Patrick Columbia, Mary W. and Walter J. Curley, Susanna and L. F. Boker Doyle, Vera and Walter A. Eberstadt, George Eberstadt, Michael Eberstadt, Blair W. Effron, Elizabeth Eveillard, Barbara G. Fleischman, Joanne d. Foster, Carole and John French, Elise D. Frick (great granddaughter of Henry Clay Frick) and John A. Garraty, Emily T. Frick, Susan Grace Galassi, Elizabeth and Patrick A. Gerschel, Anne S. and Alain Goldrach, Gail W. and Peter Goltra, Nicholas H. Hall, Linda and Franklin W. Hobbs, Susan and Henry P. Johnson, Christian K. Keesee, Konrad K. Keesee, Janine E. Luke, Sarah McNear and Ian Wardropper, Isabella Meisinger and Aso O. Tavitian, Diane A. Nixon, Bernard G. Palitz, Liliane A. and Norman L. Peck, Mary S. and Howard Howard Phipps Jr., Frick Director Emerita and Honoree Anne L. Poulet and François Poulet, Barbara and James Reibel M.D., Deborah and Charles M. Royce, Lynne Rutkin, Stephen K. Scher, Stephen A. Schwarzman, Gillian Hearst Simonds and Christian Simonds, Elizabeth M. Stafford, John Walsh, Patricia Wengraf, Isabel S. Wilcox, Jennifer Wright, Ezra Zilhka.
|
Christian K. Keesee, Konrad K. Keesee, Irene R. Aitken, Colin B. Bailey (Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator).
|
Walter A. Eberstadt, Emily T. Frick, Gail W. Goltra and Peter Goltra.
|
Minturn V. Chace and Helen Clay Chace.
|
Doug Gould, Pauline Eveillard, and Caitlin Davis.
|
|
Gwynne Tibbetts, Daniel Gerard and
Olivia Gerard.
|
Fritz Hobbs, Linda Hobbs, Susan de Saint Phalle and Francois de Saint Phalle.
|
Diane A. Nixon, John French and Carole French.
|
Henry P. Johnson and Susan Johnson.
|
|
Alexis Kugel, Janice Hill and J. Tomilson Hill.
|
Sadie O’Dea and Edward Lee Cave.
|
Max C. Marmor, E. Wayne Nordberg, Janet W. Mavec, and Dan Weiss.
|
Norman L. Peck and Liliane A. Peck.
|
Frick Associate Curator of Decorative Arts Charlotte Vignon and Ayesha Bulchandani-Mathrani.
|
Janie P. Woo and Stephen K. Scher.
|
Elizabeth M. Stafford, Paula Black, Vanessa Black.
|
Gillian Hearst Simonds and Christian Simonds.
|
Howard Phipps and Mary S. Phipps.
|
|
Guests dine in the long West Gallery.
|
| Photos:
Images 8,9,12,13,19,20: Stephanie Badini. All others by Christine A. Butler. |
|
|
|
