David Whitney, 66, Art Collector & Partner of Philip Johnson
Hyfler/Rosner
David Whitney, 66, Renowned Art Collector, Dies
By RANDY KENNEDY NY Times
David Whitney, a respected curator and prominent collector
of contemporary art who was Philip Johnson's companion,
acerbic alter ego and behind-the-scenes art adviser for more
than 40 years, died on Sunday at the
NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital. He was 66.
The cause was lung and bone cancer, said his sister, Anne
Norsworthy.
Though probably best known in New York social circles as a
legendary architect's publicity-shy éminence grise, Mr.
Whitney was a force of his own in the contemporary art
world, where he organized exhibitions at the Whitney Museum
of American Art of works by Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns and
Andy Warhol, a close friend who made frequent references to
Mr. Whitney in his famous diaries.
In the 1980's Mr. Whitney also championed younger artists
like Michael Heizer, Eric Fischl and David Salle, for whom
he arranged midcareer retrospectives at the Whitney. (Mr.
Whitney was not related to the family that founded the
Whitney Museum.) As recently as last year, he organized a
critically praised survey of Willem de Kooning's paintings
at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea.
In a rare profile of Mr. Whitney in The New York Times in
1996, Mr. Johnson, who died in January, was quoted as saying
that he bought very little new art without Mr. Whitney's
advice. "David is my contemporary art," he said. "I don't
pretend to have an original eye."
But Mr. Whitney did, and used it to buy the work of many
artists before they became huge stars, including that of
Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, James Rosenquist
and Mr. Johns. Mr. Whitney's collection of Mr. Johns's works
on paper is considered one of the best in private hands, and
much of the important work that Mr. Johnson donated to the
Museum of Modern Art over many years would not have ended up
in the museum without Mr. Whitney's guidance. (Mr. Johnson
bought Warhol's 1962 "Gold Marilyn" just after Mr. Whitney
introduced him to the artist.)
Mr. Whitney was not born into an artistic family. The son of
a successful banker, he grew up in Worcester, Mass., and in
one interview, in a remark characteristic of his dry wit,
described his family as "of absolutely no interest
whatsoever." He studied architecture at the Rhode Island
School of Design, and in 1960, while there, walked over to
Brown University to hear Mr. Johnson give a lecture. He
boldly approached Mr. Johnson, 33 years his elder, and
secured a promise of a tour of his renowned Glass House in
New Canaan, Conn. Mr. Whitney showed up the next weekend,
and their relationship began almost immediately. In an
interview with W magazine in 2002, Mr. Whitney recalled
impishly: "I was just legal."
After college, Mr. Whitney moved in with Mr. Johnson, and,
with the architect's help, was hired at the Museum of Modern
Art. He later worked at several galleries, including Leo
Castelli's, and briefly ran his own gallery. He also worked
as an assistant for artists, including Mr. Johns, and became
renowned for his talent at arranging and installing
exhibitions. Through the 1960's, he was heavily involved in
the New York art world, and once even performed - naked - in
a Claes Oldenburg happening.
"Everybody wanted to be the star," he recalled later, "so I
just decided to upstage them and take my clothes off."
He was in general far more private than that suggests, and
in fact did not appear frequently in public with Mr. Johnson
until the 1970's, when Mr. Johnson said he was chided at a
dinner party by Barbara Walters for not bringing his
companion to parties. But even as they began to appear more
as a couple, Mr. Whitney remained very independent and
pursued collecting not only paintings and drawings but also
everything from Philippe Starck furniture and objects to
Tiffany glass to George Ohr pottery.
He was also devoted to gardening, a lifelong passion that
his sister said was one of his first loves as a child.
(Besides his sister, of Acton, Mass., he is survived by a
brother, George Clarkson Whitney, of Greer, S.C.)
In the 1980's, he bought a house for himself across the road
from the Glass House, and in 2000 he bought a ranch house in
Big Sur, Calif., where he entertained friends like Frank
Gehry. In recent years, he was also increasingly relied upon
by wealthy collectors like Ronald S. Lauder, chairman of the
Modern's board, for his advice about their acquisitions.
But Mr. Whitney, self-effacing to the point of comedy,
rarely acknowledged publicly that his life as a connoisseur
might have a lasting impact. In the W magazine interview, he
summed up his collecting career with Mr. Johnson by making
it sound like little more than a weekend garage-sale habit.
"We did all right," he said. "But we weren't serious
collectors. It was just kind of fun."