Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: National Gallery's French connection Date: Tue, 3 Nov 92 15:19:55 EST Message-ID: \SE E;LIFE;ABOUT TOWN \HD National Gallery's French connection \BY Ann Geracimos \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES It wasn't your usual National Gallery of Art fete, and not only because the gallery's new director, Earl "Rusty" A. Powell III, was holding his first formal pre-exhibition dinner Thursday, with predecessor J. Carter Brown nowhere in sight. Role reversal was everywhere, even in the theme of the show: The work of a premiere American artist, Ellsworth Kelly - purist, minimalist and abstractionist mentor, during key years in France, 1948-54. Art dealer extraordinaire Leo Castelli confessed with a gnomic smile, "I'm a Gap boy." His face adorns billboards and magazine pages in a recent Gap stores ad campaign. Nearby, Doris Fisher, wife of the company's founder and president, Donald Fisher, was in un-Gaplike slinky black and gold sequins. ("Just say it's by Bob Mackie, because everybody thinks it is.") The Fishers are longtime Kelly friends and collectors. Mr. Kelly, an upstate New York resident and voter, easily resisted political repartee. Asked what he would do if appointed "cultural czar" (similar to the French Cabinet post) in the next administration, he answered with more politesse than conviction: "More public art . . . it's very difficult to say. . . . I'd make it easier for artists." He then excused himself to greet guests from Germany, France and New York. These included artist Roy Lichtenstein, who gleefully dug out of his tuxedo pocket his own original Clinton-Gore pin showing a 1950s version of the Oval Office in primary colors. Nostalgia for the good old days perhaps? Divinely chic Pamela Harriman came solo in a combination Bill Blass dress and Geoffrey Beene jacket, shimmering with sequins and lace. What of the fate of the arts in the next four years? "They will be protected," she said with a proprietary sphinxlike smile. Leading the fashion parade was Annie Cohen-Solal, France's cultural counselor in New York, in a strapless Chanel gown with a train that got stepped on at one point by a gentleman lacking savoir faire. Eager to do Mr. Kelly proud, she chose red, she said, to "match his Legion d'Honneur button." (The French are so good at les petits details). "He is the only American painter with a real relationship with Paris, the only one of his generation who went to France and got to know it," she pronounced. "When EuroDisney was built, he was so upset because it destroyed the church in the village where he had lived." At current art-market prices, Mr. Kelly, 69, might soon be able to buy up EuroDisney. The paintings go for half a million or more, and he owns most of the ones in the exhibit. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM