“Museum Head J. Carter Brown Dies,” The New York Sun, June 17, 2002, p. 2.

J. Carter Brown, patrician populist museum director passes away

by Jason Edward Kaufman

BOSTON. J. Carter Brown, longtime director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington and one of the most prominent and powerful forces in the postwar American artworld, passed away Monday evening at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He was 67 and had been battling cancer for 2 years. The seriousness of his health problems had been widely reported several weeks ago when he announced his simultaneous resignation from many arts and educational organizations with which he was long affiliated.

Brown's prominence on the national arts stage made him the unofficial minister of culture for more than three decades. During 23 years as director of the National Gallery, he added some 20,000 works to the collection, oversaw the construction of its East Building by I.M. Pei, increased the budget from $3.2 million to $52.3 million, and boosted attendance from 1.3 million to 5.7 million visitors a year. In 1981, the gallery reported 6.7 million visitors, a record still unsurpassed. When he left the gallery in 1992, having just celebrated its 50th anniversary by attracting more than 2,000 artworks and $25 million dollars, he was the institution's longest serving director.

But his legacy was more than racking up big numbers. His work as director gave Americans a national museum that could hold its own on the international playing field alongside the great institutions of Europe. Within the U.S., he was the first museum director to give the Metropoltian some competition, challenging director Thomas Hoving for international blockbusters, and more than once taking the laurels. "The Treasure Houses of Britain" (1985-86) drew more than one million visitors to its extraordinary stage-set installations. The notorious "Helga Pictures" by Andrew Wyeth again brought in fantastic crowds, though it was disdained by the critics. And for "Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration," which marked the 500th anniversary of Columbus's first voyage to the new world, Brown again broke the mold by assembling art from diverse cultures to take a snapshot of humanity around 1492.

Brown was eminently well equipped to become an artworld impresario. Born in 1934 to a Rhode Island family that traces its roots back to the 17th century, he came from wealth and wore his patrician heritage on his sleeve, but was a devout populist whose mission was to bring art to the masses. He studied Renaissance art at Harvard and at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts, spent time with Bernard Berenson at Villa I Tatti in Florence, and acquired an MBA, in those days still an unusual arrow in the director's quiver. He combined intellectual curiosity, political sense, and worldly savoir faire. And he looked the part, as well: tall, slender, impeccably dressed, with casually elegant manners he exuded a winning charm and infectious enthusiasm.

I remember his quirky habit of leaning back in his chair and shutting his eyes when considering a response to an interviewer's questions. Then, surprisingly, he would begin to speak in his pleasingly reedy Anglophilic voice -- even before opening his eyes! It was a deeply fascinating affectation that in anyone else might have seemed an insult, but in Carter's case was merely a quirky token of rapt concentration.

He was the consummate art world insider, a familiar figure at NY and Washington social and philanthropic events, whose name lent cachet and prestige to anything it touched. His power and influence were legendary, particularly within Washington art and political circles, where he was a trustee of the Kennedy Center, a member of the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, and the chairman of the Fine Arts Commission, a review panel that oversees public art and architecture in the nation's capital.

During his 30 years leading the Commission * a position he kept under seven presidents * he approved projects from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to the forthcoming addition by Frank Gehry to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and championed the World War II Memorial for the Mall as crucial to passing on the values of one generation to the next. "For me," he wrote in an editorial, "the most significant element*is the rope motif that weaves the pillars together, symbolizing the unity that was perhaps the World War II era's greatest lesson for us all."

His aesthetic standards could get him into trouble, as when in 1994 he described the Marine Corps' Iwo Jima Memorial as "kitsch," comparing the figurative monument to "a great piece of Ivory Soap carved." But despite his political longevity, he was not a yes-man. In fact, he was outspoken about the philistinism of Beltway politicos. When Congress refused to consider a tax deal to keep an important collection in the National Gallery, he declared, "I think it's a wonderful idea but*Congress doesn't see it that way -- they're interested in revenue and not in the arts and the cultural and spiritual well-being of the United States of America. It's just another example of how primitive we are as a nation compared to others."

After leaving the National Gallery in 1992, he became chairman of Ovation, a cable television arts network that furthered his ambition to "bring the arts into people's living rooms," and also worked as an advisor to Corbis, a digital photo archive established by Bill Gates that has since stockpiled millions of museum images. He also used his clout to mount "Rings: Five Passions in World Art," a thematic exhibition at the High Museum in Atlanta that accompanied the 1996 Olympic Games.

And he remained involved with dozens of organizations, many of them based in NY, including the American Federation of Arts, the National Academy of Design, the Storm King art Center in Mountainside, NY, and the World Monuments Fund. He continued to serve also as trustee of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, founded by his ancestors, and as chairman of the jury for the prestigious Pritzker Prize in architecture. He received the National Medal of arts in 1991, was decorated by more than a dozen foreign countries, and was awarded more than 20 honorary degrees.

Towards the end of his life he became increasingly involved in his family legacy, contributing to an exhibition about the house Richard Neutra designed for his father on Fishers Island, and working on a memoir of himself and his father, John Nicholas Brown.

He is survived by his daughter Elissa Brown, 18, and son John Carter Brown 4th, 23, both of Washington, DC, his brother Nicholas Brown of Newport, his sister Angela Fischer of Boston, and his fiancée, Anne Hawley of Brookline, director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, to whom he became engaged just two weeks ago.  A memorial requiem service will be held at St. Stephen's Church in Providence, RI on Tuesday, June 25th at 10:00a.m. A memorial service at
the National Cathedral in Washington, DC is being scheduled. In lieu of flowers donations may be sent to the Center for Advanced Study of the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery.

Jason Edward Kaufman ©