Chasing Aphrodite Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Jason Felch
Charles University. In the same interview, he waxed eloquent about America as a "great and good country." In reality, he detested everything American, from the mustard to the bread to the dummkopf-producing public schools.
Frel was perhaps best known as an uncompromising womanizer. At the Met, female employees devised a telephone code to warn one another when he left his office for the stacks, where he was known to accost young research assistants. Many happily complied, succumbing to his craggy looks, his kiss of the hand, his deep gaze into their eyes as he explained how the likenesses of Jesus and the Apostles in early Christian art were copied from Roman portraits. Left in his wake in Prague, Princeton, and New York was a trail of ex-wives, heartbroken girlfriends, and abandoned children.
But for all his flaws, Frel recognized Getty's death for what it was. As his colleagues hoisted their champagne glasses in gleeful unison, Frel was uncharacteristically quiet. He eventually pulled Fredericksen aside and whispered darkly in his thick accent, "This sudden wealth is going to cause us a great deal of grief."
G ETTY'S GIFT CAME with one big string attached: it was to be controlled by a board of six museum trustees, many of whom possessed no knowledge of art.
Prior to Getty's death, the board existed mostly to fulfill the legal requirements for nonprofits in the U.S. tax code. The trustees met quarterly to rubberstamp the old man's decisions. Getty had stacked the board with his accountant, a Getty Oil executive (Harold Berg), the firm's outside attorney, his sons Ronald and Gordon, and his Italian art adviser, Federico Zeri, an outspoken Renaissance art historian who guided many of Getty's acquisitions, often in exchange for a kickback from dealers, some believed. The chairman was Berg, a paunchy Getty Oil vice president who had befriended Getty when both worked as young roughnecks in the East Texas oil fields. Berg's aesthetic sensibilities ran from unfiltered cigarettes to gigantic martinis, and while running museum board meetings, he sometimes nodded off. A blunt Kansan, he once rejected as "bullshit" a plan to excavate the rest of the Villa dei Papiri, where unknown treasures remained untouched under Vesuvial ash. Berg had a better idea: why didn't the Getty pool its money with other institutions and just buy out the National Archaeological Museum in Naples?
With the founder's death, this was the motley crew that would now control the Getty fortune.
Frel regarded the board with loathing. They were "fucking American morons" who valued their ancient art like pinkie ringsâthe bigger and shinier, the better. With the exception of Zeri, they didn't understand art or what it took to build a world-class antiquities collection. The Louvre, the National Museums in Berlin, the Metropolitan Museum of Artâthese institutions hadn't become great just by buying marquee items. They also gobbled up pottery shards, architectural fragments, second-rate statues, and crumbling votive urns. These pieces might not be worthy of exhibition, but they formed the spine of a deeper "study collection" that attracted scholars from around the world.
Frel was determined to build such a collection at the Getty, hoping to convert the boutique museum into a hub of modern scholarship. The board saw no point to the endeavor. So, even before Getty's death, the antiquities curator set in motion a scheme to work around them: if board members wouldn't buy the objects, Frel would acquire them as donations.
Frel began canvassing everyone he knew for gifts. On a trip through New York, he visited the Manhattan flat of Malcolm Wiener, an investment fund manager and Met board member. Frel found Wiener, an antiquities buff, near tears. Someone had just knocked over a Mycenaean pot, shattering it. Frel got down on all fours to tenderly gather the pieces into a dirty shirt pulled from his travel bag. "I'm going to take every little piece of clay and have
Frel was perhaps best known as an uncompromising womanizer. At the Met, female employees devised a telephone code to warn one another when he left his office for the stacks, where he was known to accost young research assistants. Many happily complied, succumbing to his craggy looks, his kiss of the hand, his deep gaze into their eyes as he explained how the likenesses of Jesus and the Apostles in early Christian art were copied from Roman portraits. Left in his wake in Prague, Princeton, and New York was a trail of ex-wives, heartbroken girlfriends, and abandoned children.
But for all his flaws, Frel recognized Getty's death for what it was. As his colleagues hoisted their champagne glasses in gleeful unison, Frel was uncharacteristically quiet. He eventually pulled Fredericksen aside and whispered darkly in his thick accent, "This sudden wealth is going to cause us a great deal of grief."
G ETTY'S GIFT CAME with one big string attached: it was to be controlled by a board of six museum trustees, many of whom possessed no knowledge of art.
Prior to Getty's death, the board existed mostly to fulfill the legal requirements for nonprofits in the U.S. tax code. The trustees met quarterly to rubberstamp the old man's decisions. Getty had stacked the board with his accountant, a Getty Oil executive (Harold Berg), the firm's outside attorney, his sons Ronald and Gordon, and his Italian art adviser, Federico Zeri, an outspoken Renaissance art historian who guided many of Getty's acquisitions, often in exchange for a kickback from dealers, some believed. The chairman was Berg, a paunchy Getty Oil vice president who had befriended Getty when both worked as young roughnecks in the East Texas oil fields. Berg's aesthetic sensibilities ran from unfiltered cigarettes to gigantic martinis, and while running museum board meetings, he sometimes nodded off. A blunt Kansan, he once rejected as "bullshit" a plan to excavate the rest of the Villa dei Papiri, where unknown treasures remained untouched under Vesuvial ash. Berg had a better idea: why didn't the Getty pool its money with other institutions and just buy out the National Archaeological Museum in Naples?
With the founder's death, this was the motley crew that would now control the Getty fortune.
Frel regarded the board with loathing. They were "fucking American morons" who valued their ancient art like pinkie ringsâthe bigger and shinier, the better. With the exception of Zeri, they didn't understand art or what it took to build a world-class antiquities collection. The Louvre, the National Museums in Berlin, the Metropolitan Museum of Artâthese institutions hadn't become great just by buying marquee items. They also gobbled up pottery shards, architectural fragments, second-rate statues, and crumbling votive urns. These pieces might not be worthy of exhibition, but they formed the spine of a deeper "study collection" that attracted scholars from around the world.
Frel was determined to build such a collection at the Getty, hoping to convert the boutique museum into a hub of modern scholarship. The board saw no point to the endeavor. So, even before Getty's death, the antiquities curator set in motion a scheme to work around them: if board members wouldn't buy the objects, Frel would acquire them as donations.
Frel began canvassing everyone he knew for gifts. On a trip through New York, he visited the Manhattan flat of Malcolm Wiener, an investment fund manager and Met board member. Frel found Wiener, an antiquities buff, near tears. Someone had just knocked over a Mycenaean pot, shattering it. Frel got down on all fours to tenderly gather the pieces into a dirty shirt pulled from his travel bag. "I'm going to take every little piece of clay and have