ANNE D'HARNONCOURT

7 SEPTEMBER I 9 4 3 1 JUNE 2OO8

PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

VOL. 156, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2012

BIOGRAPHICAL

MEMOIRS

A N N E D ' H A R N O N C O U R T was born to a family distinguished

r^L
in the arts. Her father, Ren d'Harnoncourt, was for nearly
JL J L twenty years director of the Museum of Modern Art in New
York and the famed Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt was
her cousin. After attending the Brearley School in New York City, she
took her B.A. at Radcliffe College (1965) and her M.A. at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University (1967), and began her career
as curatorial assistant at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 1967 to
1969. After serving two years as assistant curator of twentieth-century
art at the Art Institute of Chicago (1969-71), where she married Joseph
J. Rishel (APS; currently Gisela and Denis Alter Senior Curator of European Painting before 1900 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and
senior curator of the John G. Johnson Collection and the Rodin Museum), she returned with her husband to the Philadelphia Museum,
where both took up full curatorial appointments, she as curator of
twentieth-century art (1972-82). In 1982 she was named the George D.
Widener Director, and in 1997, upon Robert Montgomery Scott's retirement, she became the George D. Widener Director and chief executive officer of the Philadelphia Museum. Her sudden and quite unexpected death in 2008 in the fullness of her career and at the height of
her accomplishments sent shock waves throughout the museum and its
supporters, the city of Philadelphia, the national and international art
world, and her thousands of friends everywhere.
Anne made her mark quickly as a curator, notably as a specialist on
Marcel Duchamp. In 1973 she co-organized with Kynaston McShine a
major retrospective of the artist's work, also shown at the Museum of
Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago and accompanied by an
indispensable catalogue. She also oversaw, in collaboration with the
artist's widow, Alexina (Teeny) Duchamp, and stepson, Paul Matisse,
the installation of the artist's sensational last work. tants donns:
1) La chute d'eau, 2) Le gaz d'clairage, also publishing, with Walter
Hopps, the fundamental study of this unsettling work. She organized
the important exhibitions Futurism and the Avant-Garde (1980) and
John Cage: Scores and Prints (1982), all the while building the Philadelphia Museum collection through acquisition of works by Jasper Johns,
Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, and Ellsworth Kelly, among many others.
As director, she was especially effective in acquiring for Philadelphia
works important to the cultural and artistic patrimony of the city,
among them John Singleton Copley's Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas
Mifflin (1773) and Jean-Antoine Houdon's wonderful Bust of Benjamin Franklin (1779). Most famously, Thomas Eakins's masterpiece.
The Gross Clinic (1875), commissioned for the Jefferson Medical College and in danger of leaving the city through sale by the college, was
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saved for Philadelphia by Anne's brokering of a joint purchase with the

Pennsylvania Academy of the Eine Arts. Less well known, but of immense importance for the city, was the acquisition through the generous gift of Muriel and Philip Berman of 2,500 Old Master drawings
and 42,786 Old Master prints from the former teaching collection of
the Pennsylvania Academy.
She was by inclination and training a scholar of modern and contemporary art, and under her directorship the museum twice represented
the United States at the Venice Biennale, with exhibitions of works by
Jasper Johns (1988) and by Bruce Nauman (2009), both of which won
the Leone d'Oro. Anne's great love, however, was for art itself. She relished the opportunity to work in a major museum with collections embracing the widest range of artistic expression, from the great traditions
of European and American art, to decorative arts and crafts, to costumes and textiles from around the world, and art from India, Korea,
China, and Japan. She was especially thrilled by the acquisition and
exhibition of the seventeenth-century handscroU by Hon'ami Koetsu,
Poems from the Shinokin Wakashu. Under her directorship the museum acquired by bequest some eight hundred works from Stella Kramrisch, her near-legendary older colleague as curator of Indian art, as
well as some ninety miniature paintings from Alvin O. Bellak, including
The Poet Bihari Offers Homage to Radha and Krishna (ca. 1760-65)
by the master painter Nainsukh of Guler.
Anne d'Harnoncourt embraced the "low" of folk and outsider art
as much as the "high" of modernism, and she had a global outlook
before it became convenient or fashionable. Her passion for Mexico
began, as she put it, before she was born, for her father worked there
for several years, later helping to develop local arts and crafts. At the
Philadelphia Museum of Art she supported no fewer than thirteen exhibitions dedicated to Latin American art, from Diego Rivera to Tina
Modotti to Erida Kahlo, not to mention the highly innovative Treasures: Art in Latin America, 1490-1820, curated by Joseph Rishel. In
recognition of all this, in 2007 Mexico awarded her the Decoration of
the Aztec Eagle, which she greatly cherished. She and Joe shared abiding friendships with colleagues in Mexico, and her death is deeply
mourned in that country.
Anne's commitment to fairness, to equal opportunity, to the moral
necessity of making art available to everyone, found expanding means
of expression in her years as director. She supported the work of African American artists, and took an enormous interest in the history
of the United States, including the history and culture of slavery. She
did more than make the museum a welcoming place for children and
young adults: she consistently sought ways to support public education

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throughout the region. If Anne was, in the words of her Courtauld

Institute tutor John Golding, "a latter-day, more dynamic version of
Henry James's most splendid heroines," dignified and patrician in manner, she was also a true child of the sixties. Devoted to civil rights for
all, to gospel and popular music, from Odetta to Dylan, to Laurie Anderson, and, of course, John Cage, she was a steady and genuine activist. Her language was never political or clichd, but was no less forceful
for being diplomatic and concihatory. Just days after her death the
Philadelphia City Council passed a unanimous resolution honoring the
life of Anne d'Harnoncourt, "noted civic leader, cultural advocate, and
Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Philadelphia Museum of
Art." Among the many citations came recognition of "the strength of
her leadership and belief in the power of art to provide meaningful experiences and enhance the lives of our citizens and our visitors from
near and far"; of her launching, through a major exhibition of works
by Czanne, a new era of cultural tourism to bring visitors to the city;
and of her dedication to the power of education to change lives. Mayor
Michael Nutter described Anne as a great painting, "burnished in the
image of our mind," which will never truly go away. Such comments
would have been inconceivable when Anne took up the directorship of
what was then an institution divided among its constituents and increasingly threatened with irrelevancy. They speak volumes about her
power to convey the values of the museum to city hall, to trustees and
collectors, to the seats of academic art history, to the local community
of artists, and, not least, to the public at large, bringing into harmony
the relationship between the museum and the diverse communities it
serves. By the end of her life, Anne had gone beyond being an outstanding director to becoming a true cultural and civic leader.
Anne's ability to inspire extended to successful fund-raising for the
museum and to the execution of the remarkable plan to acquire and
renovate the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, named for the
benefactors who shared her vision. Ray Perelman and other former
chairmen of the board such as Phil Berman and especially Gerry Lenfest (APS) were mobilized in support of her long-range plans for the reinstallation and reorganization of the collections. Notable was Anne's
determination to guarantee funding for the library, for the museum archives (where she dreamed of researching and writing upon retirement),
for pubhcations, and especially for curatorial positions. She saw the
museum as a whole, and knew just what it would take to maintain the
extraordinary standards of civic pride, scholarship, and curatorial expertise that she tirelessly fostered. All this was done because of her deep
belief that art matters in the life of a community and its citizens, and
because the Philadelphia Museum of Art and its many publics deserved

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the best. Anne was thrilled by the numerous successes of her curators,
and she took extraordinary pride in the exhibitions and catalogues they
produced (following every line in every manuscript with her unmistakable blue felt-tipped pen to be sure that every word counted).
It is not surprising that Anne was frequently asked for advice, serving as a regent of the Smithsonian and on the boards of many organizations, including the Henry Luce Foundation, Inc., the Japan Society, the
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Fabric Workshop and
Museum, and the John Cage Trust. She was happiest, however, where
she could make a real difference, especially when that meant working
with artists and art, and she played a significant role in meetings of the
international, and influential, Bizot Group of major museums. Anne
was a global citizen, with special affection for Japan, France, Mexico,
and England, but she was as interested in Chicago, Los Angeles, and
Boston, as in any foreign capital. Her generosity with her time and energy in traveling wherever ideas and art were to be discussed (which
she shared with Joe) was as rare as it was taxing. It made a huge difference to colleagues to have Anne and Joe appear in a museum to share
thoughts on a collection or an exhibition, even as their hospitality at
home in Philadelphia provided the foundation for trusting and mutual
exchanges over many years.
Anne's legacy will be a long one. It is all the more important, then,
to try to balance out the very special qualities of her hfe. It would be a
betrayal of her abilities to associate her with such ancillary debates as
those over whether museum directors should be trained in management
instead of, or in addition to, art history, or the position of professional
women, or the role of the blockbuster exhibition (although she had
views on all those issues). Whether supporting high-profile exhibitions
like those on Czanne and Barnett Newman, or whether highly specialized ones such as that devoted to the exquisite Italian draftsman and
printmaker Pietro Testa, her emphasis was always on quality, in the
choice of the objects to be displayed, in their installation, in the catalogues recording them, and in the scholarship devoted to them. Anne's
commitment to the arts was total and, in addition to the visual arts,
included music and dance and, always, the politics of supporting them.
It is perhaps in the cerebral illogicalities and rational spontaneities of
John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Jasper Johns, who all knew and
admired her, and in the grace and beauty of George Balanchine that her
secret lay. Her sense of culture was also based in literaturein poetry,
biography, and history, from all of which she studied her moves, in dialogue, one sensed, with the minds of others. Her intelligence was as
profound as her sensibilities were refined. It was also practical and accessible, and people responded to that, as they did to her humor and

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optimism. She and Joefilledtheir world with the Muses and with friends
and, most of all, understood that it was never about them, but about
things of the highest importance, based on shared values. Such clarity is
very rare, especially in lives dedicated to service to institutions.
Elected 1988; Committees: Jefferson Medal 1993-2003; Membership V 1993-96
ELIZABETH

CROPPER

Dean, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts

National Gallery of Art
CHARLES

DEMPSEY

Professor of Italian Renaissance and Baroque Art

Johns Hopkins University

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