Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion
My mother collected art.
Twice a year she would throw parties for about sixty people each. The two parties were for different categories of acquaintances.
If she invited sixty people to a party, sixty would show up; nobody ever no-showed except if a relative had bought the farm. They couldn?t pass up the lobster canapes.
Everyone thought my folks were rich, because the house was full of art and gracious furniture. But my father worked for the government.
Little did anyone know that all the art came from flea markets or auctions. Having attended art school in Paris, my mother had a good eye; no matter how much she coveted a piece, she never bought it for more than ten cents on the dollar. ?Someday,? she often said to me, ?all this will be yours.?
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.
In the end, when the burglars struck, she had accumulated a Millet and a Renoir, a Kandinsky and a Chagall. The burglars took the 12-foot Renaissance tapestry of Saul threatening David, the enormous majolica jug with the inscription 1617, the Jacobean chair, and all the silver and Persian carpets. They even took my stamp collection with its prize mint broken-leg kangaroo and the penny black.
It?s hard to say when, but at some point my mother crossed a line. She became her art collection. That?s who she was. If Gabriel had asked her, ?Who are you?? she would have responded: ?Look about you.?
She never recovered from the big burglary; and naturally, she shortly died.
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Having spent my early years with someone who possessed some of Mrs. Gardner?s traits, I?m quite certain that she wouldn?t have wanted Piano monkeying with her perfectly-arranged legacy to turn it into an institution.
That whirring sound is Isabella turning.
