Peter Selz (26 page)

In this negative judgment, however, Selz was too harsh. The museum's existing collection included worthy examples from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as
Boy in Green
(ca. 1795–1805), by early American itinerant painter John Brewster Jr., and Théodore Rousseau's
Forest of Fontainebleau
(1855–56), from the 1920 bequest of Phoebe Hearst. Lucinda Barnes characterized the collection that greeted Selz upon his arrival as constituting the “cornerstones” of the museum's current collections—historical Asian paintings and works on paper; European old masters and nineteenth-century paintings and prints; nineteenth-century American art, including the grand Albert Bierstadt and Emanuel Leutze paintings, works of considerable historical significance; and finally, a strong representation of Abstract Expressionism and other twentieth-century works, with a focus on the San Francisco Bay Area. Despite his disparagement of the collection, Peter put it into a broader community perspective when he wrote, “The contemplation of works of art from all periods of history, from all cultures of mankind, can lead to a greater understanding of our own problems and place them in a universal context.”
⁵⁵
Although the Berkeley collection was and is not comprehensive, the basic idea of public benefit deriving from exposure to diversity in art—in styles, subjects, periods, and origins—can be served
by what the museum has assembled. Still, Peter takes pride in the burst of collecting that he initiated (between 1965 and 1970, thirteen hundred works of art were added) and the quality of the art acquired.

The great Hans Hofmann collection, which Peter refers to proudly and perhaps too proprietarily, had its own Hofmann Wing in the new building, a fitting recognition of its status as founding gift. The gift had been negotiated at the suggestion of Clark Kerr by faculty painters Erle Loran and Glenn Wessels. It also did not hurt that the art department faculty was made up largely of former students of Hofmann's from his two teaching stints at Berkeley. In addition to Loran and Wessels, the list included Karl Kasten, Jim McCray, and John Haley. So, for Hofmann, Berkeley was a logical place for his work to reside and be permanently on view. Selz says he was involved in the acquisition in two ways: in New York, he “knew Hans very well” and supported his work; and the final selection of paintings was made by Peter with Loran, their decisions subject to the approval of New York gallery owner Sam Kootz.
⁵⁶

The Hofmann gift and several of the Powerhouse shows put Berkeley on the art museum map, and in the beginning Peter had every reason to applaud himself and his decision to leave New York and MoMA. His relationship with Clark Kerr was not just good but enviable. Berkeley chancellor Roger W. Heyns came at the same time as Peter, and they became friends and eventually worked together “beautifully.” An anecdote about one early acquisition makes the point; according to Selz, it was but one of many such purchases made possible by support from the university administration, in this case expedited directly by Kerr:

 

Things were going beautifully at the start. . . . I'm in New York and I see this oil sketch, a superb small Rubens. And it was very cheap, $95,000— and that was about 1967. So I said, “We must get this picture authenticated by tomorrow.” I had one week to buy it, because the dealer had only two weeks before sending it back to England. I called Clark Kerr and told him I wanted to buy this Rubens. So he asked me questions about the quality and the authenticity. Then he said, “I'll take your word for it, and I'll allocate half the price from university-wide funds, if you can get the other half from Berkeley.” I said, “I'm here in New York, how am I going to get the other half within five days?” . . . Kerr said, “I'll get it for you.”
⁵⁷

The
Road to Calvary
(ca. 1632) was a source of great delight for Peter and is counted among the most important acquisitions of the time. Peter's enthusiasm seemed to be justified by the expert opinion of his discerning colleague, seventeenth-century Dutch painting specialist Svetlana Alpers, who called it among the “most beautiful as well as one of the most technically interesting of Rubens's late oil sketches.”
⁵⁸

Imagine Peter's delight, after his tenure at MoMA dealing exclusively with modern art, to be able to purchase works such as the Rubens and, his first acquisition, a sixteenth-century
Pietà
by Giovanni Savoldo. The latter has attached to it a humorous story that Selz is fond of telling to illustrate the workings of UC Berkeley bureaucracy: “The first painting—and a great purchase it was—was Savoldo's
Pietà with Three Saints
. It was sent here, along with the invoice which I forwarded to Financial Services. The money was in the budget. Well, after a while the dealer calls, wondering about payment. When I called the Financial Office they said, ‘Professor Selz, you are new here and didn't know that for purchases over $1,000 we need
competitive bids!!
'”
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The experiences Selz had enjoyed with his grandfather, visiting the museums of Munich, had finally become pertinent to his job, and he went on to collect vigorously. The current museum director, Lawrence Rinder, speaks to the contributions that resulted: “Indeed, his legacy is truly remarkable, for the works he was able to purchase as well as acquire by gift. Not surprisingly, Selz focused much attention on building strong holdings in post–War abstraction to complement the extraordinary gift of paintings from Hans Hofmann. . . . Because of [this] and because of its adventurous contemporary exhibition program, it developed a reputation as a contemporary art museum [with a] foothold in several important areas of art history including Surrealism, Expressionism, Pop Art, and Photorealism.”
⁶⁰

Many other knowledgeable observers agree with Rinder that the variety and, in many cases, the quality of works acquired during the Selz years provide a provocative overview of modern art, with an emphasis on California. Yet “one of his many distinctive contributions was to attend to European painting as well as American,” according to Rinder. Along with works by many of Peter's favorite twentieth-century artists—
among them Beckmann (
Woman Half-Nude at the Window
, 1926), de Kooning (
The Marshes
, 1945), Tinguely (
Black Knight
, 1964), and Sam Francis (
Berkeley
, 1970)—appear, for example, the unexpected
Pietà
(1527) by Savoldo, the Rubens, and a pen-and-ink drawing of a flying female figure by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Selz, in short, took the opportunity to shape a collection that would reflect a history of art that extended back well before the modern era.

•    •    •

But the dream did not last long. Shortly after the move into the new building, a variety of things—not the least of which was funding support—began to deteriorate. What had started so well, “with a bang,” began to unravel from both within and without. Much of this had to do with the new administration in Sacramento and wide displeasure with the management of the state-funded University of California, in particular with the relationship of the UC regents to student activism at the various campuses, especially Berkeley. Caught in between were the chief administrators of the university. Peter's account puts the situation in terms of his own difficulties, including loss of several important potential gifts of major collections, one of which was planned to become a UC art study center in Venice:

 

The thing that started to put the damper on was the [1966] election of Governor Ronald Reagan. We almost got the Peggy Guggenheim collection. A year before I came out here I was in Venice at the Biennale. [Art critic] Herbert Read and Peggy were there; we were at the beach. I knew Peggy slightly and she said, “I don't know what I'm going to do with my collection. My intention was to give it to the Tate, but I found out that the Italian government won't let me take anything out over fifty years old, so it all has to stay here. . . . What should I do?” And I said, “Well, I'm going to leave the Museum of Modern Art to start a new museum . . . in California. And I have a great idea: you can gift your collection to the University of California in Berkeley and leave it all here, and it will be like I Tatti [the Bernard Berenson collection handled by Harvard], a great study center and collection in Venice. . . . And you will be the curator.” Then we corresponded more.
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Walter
Horn, who of course knew from Peter of this great opportunity for the University of California, was on sabbatical in Europe at the time (1965–66), and he courted Peggy. Horn discovered that, across the street from her residence, the former American consulate building was available. Walter proceeded to sketch out a plan for dormitories and study rooms. Apparently Peggy Guggenheim was very pleased.

At about the same time, Peter went to the regents, who accepted the Guggenheim proposal, despite board art expert Norton Simon's remarkably offhand (and uninformed) dismissal: “Well, it's not such a great collection.” Peter was and remains incredulous: “He did say that. He
did
say that.” It soon becomes clear that Selz is no great admirer of Norton Simon, the latter's stunning old-master collection notwithstanding. In connection with modern art, the formidable Simon was at the time still something of a novice.

A letter was sent to Guggenheim; she responded that she liked the proposal, and “I especially like this Walter Horn.” Peggy knew Peter but she did not know much about UC Berkeley, and she told Selz she needed to “meet his boss” before she made her decision:

 

So, I called Mr. Kerr and I said “Peggy wants to meet with us.” You have to remember that the whole museum was Kerr's idea in the first place. . . . We arranged for the Kerrs and the Selzes to go to Venice, and we took Peggy out for dinner. She was enormously impressed with Clark Kerr, who would mention things like being offered a secretaryship in the Kennedy administration—I think it was Labor—and a secretaryship in the Johnson administration. And she asked him, “Why didn't you take this?” [Kerr replied], “These things are very important, but the University of California is even more important.”
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The next morning Peggy talked further with Peter and told him this was the best proposal she had received and she was going to have her attorneys draw up papers. Having her own version of Berenson's I Tatti was very appealing. This was the summer of 1966; in the fall the attorneys began to talk. But in November Reagan was elected, and in response to the political right wing both in the legislature and on the university's Board of Regents, he fired Clark Kerr in January 1967. This appeared very prominently in the European press, and Selz got a call from Peggy asking, “Is
this true what I read? How can I trust an institution in which things like that happen?”

She withdrew her support, saying she couldn't stand behind a university where a great president could be fired for purely political reasons. She wanted nothing further to do with it. As for Peter, in addition to losing this prize collection and a great modern art study center, he saw a personal fantasy evaporate as well. “You see, I had envisioned that I would spend six months in Berkeley and six months in Venice. Now, what could be better?”
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Still, the Hofmann gift was a great beginning for building a serious modern art collection at Berkeley. And the later acquisition of works by various contemporary artists, predominantly local figures from exhibitions such as
Funk
, began to form the nucleus of a distinguished California representation. Among these artists are Robert Arneson, Joan Brown, Robert Bechtle, Sam Francis, Richard Diebenkorn, Bruce Conner, and Nathan Oliveira. Selz especially remembers the fortuitous circumstances of an early William T. Wiley acquisition:

 

I think it was the time of the Funk show that Bill Wiley donated a painting to the museum. Some time later he wrote me a letter, telling me that he did not like the painting and asked me to
destroy
it! I responded that our function was to preserve, not destroy, works of art (contrary to the Tinguely episode) and that I would be glad to exchange it for a work he liked better. He said, “Okay, once you open the new building I want you to give me a space to work and I'll paint you a new painting.” This was done. Bill painted a fine new picture. We brought out the old one, he looked at it and said it was much better than he thought. Result: the museum had two William T. Wileys.
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There were, however, more disappointments to come following Peggy Guggenheim's withdrawal and the consequent loss of her great collection of Surrealist and related modern art: “The other great blow was that Rothko had kept paintings from the Museum of Modern Art exhibition together, and he said many times to me that he might give this group to Berkeley. But before he could do anything about that he died. At one point it looked as if, in addition to the Hofmanns, we would have a large group of Rothkos—and
possibly the Guggenheim in Venice. So, not everything I tried worked.”
⁶⁵

After Reagan fired Kerr, new presidents took over who, according to Selz, were not much interested in the museum or art. It had been Kerr's pet project, and without him there was no hope that the museum would be properly funded. Eventually it became a burden to the university.

 

The only way I could have maintained any kind of standard was to spend ninety percent of my time fundraising, as many directors do. And this I didn't want. . . . The reason I finally left was financial. But I also found out that the art department wasn't really backing the museum, so that source of support was never there. They had impossible ideas like doing big shows of Rubens. . . . The department was not interested in being on the cutting edge of the new, because none of my colleagues—
not a one
—was interested in contemporary art. . . . Herschel [Chipp] was primarily interested in early-twentieth-century art. His interest wasn't there, and nobody was interested in things like nineteenth-century American art—they couldn't have cared less.
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