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An Artpop Talk with Daria Foner
350 Plays2 years ago
In this Artpop Talk, we are joined by special guest Daria Foner. Foner speaks to her time working at the Morgan Library & Museum and the institution’s iconic first woman librarian, Belle Da Costa Greene. We also chat about her current position with Sotheby’s Old Master Painting Department... and we know the Artpop Tarts will love this auction house content.
Daria is an art historian and native New Yorker. She completed her Ph.D. at Columbia University, where her dissertation, "Collaborative Endeavours in the Career of Andrea del Sarto," focused on the creative practices of sixteenth-century Florentine visual and performing artists. Prior to joining the Sotheby's Old Master Paintings Department, she worked at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. She previously held curatorial positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Frick Collection and contributed to exhibitions at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Columbia University’s Wallach Gallery.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, hello, and welcome to Art Pop Talk. I'm Bianca. And I'm Gianna. We are so excited for today's episode. We have our first guest since returning from summer break, and you all are going to absolutely love her.
00:00:18
Speaker
This conversation was so juicy. I was drooling.
Introduction to Belle da Costa Green
00:00:22
Speaker
So today we are joined by the brilliant Daria Foner, who is talking with us about Belle da Costa Green, one of the first women to direct a major museum in the US. And she will tell you all about that. And on top of that, we get a little insider scoop to one of the art world's most renowned auction houses.
Beyoncé's Renaissance Album
00:00:47
Speaker
Without further ado, let's art pop talk. Oh, Gianna, this was such a good conversation. I cannot wait for everyone to hear it. At the end of today's interview with Daria,
00:01:06
Speaker
We did ask her about Beyonce's Renaissance, and soon you will understand why. It was the perfect question to ask her. So, Gianna, can we talk about it now? Yes. We say it hesitantly. If you wish. I haven't really done a deep dive on the album. My experience with it has been listening to it while spread sheeting.
00:01:36
Speaker
and try not to let my corporate job break my soul. Ooh, same. I'm very, just wanna preface this with like, this is very surface level initial thoughts. Also, am I missing something? Like we just haven't gotten a ton of one visuals yet. Obviously she's been posting about it on Instagram a little. We definitely obviously have that cover art that we kind of mentioned last week with those equestrian vibes.
Pop Music Trends and Influences
00:02:05
Speaker
We're definitely yeah, like we're still getting some equestrian imagery a lot of that has been kind of like Appropriated and kind of used in a couple different ways But mostly what we're getting is like the disco glam aspect, which we know that this is definitely a dance album
00:02:23
Speaker
Right, right, so I would love to talk about it with you, but we're never definitive here on APT, and if more comes out or we get a music video, I would love to do a compare and contrast, because I have some thoughts. I have some thoughts. And I'm scared to share my thoughts, and I don't like that. Okay. But I feel real nervous.
00:02:52
Speaker
So Bianca told me that she was nervous to share her thoughts about this and it really reminded me of an SNL skit from probably like
00:03:04
Speaker
five years ago where they are, there's this scene and everybody's at a dinner table and they're talking about Beyonce. And this one guy at the dinner table was like, oh, you know, yeah, I like her. I don't like, I don't know, whatever. And they were like, what do you mean? He was like, yeah, you know, I like her. I just like, I don't like love Beyonce. Everyone's like, we know what you did. Like we know what you've done. Like get out
Critiquing Beyoncé and Lady Gaga Comparisons
00:03:25
Speaker
of my house. And like the dinner party escalates and then like the police come and get him because he says that he didn't like, he didn't like absolutely love Beyonce.
00:03:33
Speaker
We all know it's hard to say bad things about Beyoncé or to criticize or have your own opinion when it comes to her music. Or her. Music is her. I feel nervous, but I feel also inspired.
00:03:56
Speaker
a little bit brave because I did get to talk with some of my friends about it this past weekend. And one of my girlfriends was like, I'm just really tired of Beyonce having this goddess component where she's untouchable. And it was kind of like, because somebody gets the police, you know, like, like, oh, oh, we can't say that, you know, but then we started like opening up about our true feelings about this. It's like dipping your toes in the water when you're like, how do you feel about this coworker? And then you like,
00:04:25
Speaker
Let's see if you guys are on the same page about like thinking that this person is annoying. Ooh, what's going on? I worked you. But you know what I'm talking about. It's like, oh, yeah, so-and-so said this. And then it's like, mm-hmm. And then like slowly you find your work best to you, like.
00:04:42
Speaker
Totally. Oh my gosh, that is so funny. It does feel like that. You're scared. And you guys are gonna be so sick of it. And I'm already upset with myself for doing it, but I'm right about this. And I just need you to say what you're gonna say. Go for it. Gaga did it first. Yeah. Gaga did it first. And I am in the thick of it.
00:05:09
Speaker
Ooh, my heart is racing. I'm uncontrollable and I'm twitchy and I am having trouble concentrating because in 24 hours from Gianna and I recording this, I will be at the Chromatica Ball. And so I've been listening to obviously the set list, Lady Gaga Deep Dive on Spotify, which I told you guys is the greatest thing to ever happen to me. It's fantastic. So I've been listening to the set list with
00:05:39
Speaker
renaissance at the same time, like going back and forth between the two. And I was in the office for a couple days last week and I was listening to the album, the set list, the album, the set list, like back to back. And when you think about it, it's so wild that Chromatica came out two plus years ago and
00:06:04
Speaker
here we are now getting this Beyonce dance album. And we also had, you know, Drake try to do that album. And I saw some tweets like, this Beyonce album is what Drake tried to do. I'm like, this is what Lady Gaga did two years ago. Do you know what I'm saying? So we did talk about the concept of Chromatica and how constructing different fictitious realms like your mind palace, what have you.
00:06:34
Speaker
was definitely a trend that yes with Doja I feel as though Gaga helped to kind of originate and then we saw a lot of other contemporary artists on the same vein as Gaga like Doja and Lil Nas try to also do themselves yeah in a way you know what's funny about me what's funny about you I
00:07:02
Speaker
love pop music like I by no means have like a great taste or I don't have great taste in like music I feel like I like to listen to a lot of stuff but at the end of the day I love a bop I am a na na na girl you know what I mean like they always say like love a na na na like a pop song isn't a pop song without like a na na na na na that's all I'm gonna say like I give into it I love a bop
00:07:29
Speaker
but I am not like super duper into electronica music which makes me a very interesting kind of Gaga stan in the sense like I love the way that she uses it but if you listen to like explicitly electronica music like it's not for me like I love how she incorporates it with dance and with words like I don't like music with no words
00:07:55
Speaker
I feel as though I got a little bit of that with Renaissance. Like there's like a lot of repetition in terms of it being a dance album and I'm like, oh, I can get that at the club. I don't know about you guys. I get like so annoyed when I'm dancing to things and I have nothing to sing to. I'm not that kind of dancer. So when things just start getting super repetitive for that long of time, I particularly lose interest. But also like I'm not really listening to this
Analysis of Beyoncé's Album
00:08:25
Speaker
music.
00:08:25
Speaker
in a context that it deserves to be listened to. Like we also came across with the same thing with Chromatica because we were in the pandemic and we couldn't go to the club. Things are different. I'm hoping in like, you know, three, four weeks, I'll actually be able to go to the club for a little APT birthday. Hell yeah, we should find a Renaissance night and see how it holds up. I'm curious. I mean, I really do hope that like we do get a recent Beyonce song because I don't go to the club
00:08:51
Speaker
that often these days, folks. So it's a rare occasion. Right. But I also, to your point, Break My Soul is not my favorite song on the album. I actually am finding that I like it more within the album itself. I like the way that it's situated in there. Also, I mean, we love a good transition. We are here for these transitions. Chromatica's one, two and three.
00:09:17
Speaker
But break my soul for being this single is not it's just not my favorite. I hope that's not the one that we like continue to get in the in the club. Cuff it is fucking fantastic. Pure honey. Obviously summer Renaissance.
00:09:37
Speaker
Ah, thick church girls. They're great. For me, really every single song on this album is so good. And when I listen to it, I feel like fucking fired up. But then when I step back and I take myself out of that headspace, which I'm not sure she's asking us to do, you know what I mean?
Cultural Context in Beyoncé's Music
00:10:02
Speaker
But for me, it's like,
00:10:05
Speaker
It feels very forced. And I feel like there's a forced kind of context of gay culture, obviously ball culture. And there's something that when I try to evaluate it like that, it's
00:10:24
Speaker
not driving with me. I don't know if that makes sense, Gianna. But again, like I'm not sure I'm supposed to be doing that. But when I do step back, I'm like, this just feels very, very forced. I don't know another way to put it, some of the songs. And I think your feelings about that are okay, because you have a very different lived experience. And what I'll say about that is I think that there's a lot of
00:10:53
Speaker
History in this album particularly to like the culture of black music and also to Beyonce's personal life Yeah, I am NOT a like obviously we understand. This is a Lady Gaga stand podcast. We get it
00:11:07
Speaker
But there's a lot just about her personal life and her history that I don't know about. And so, not privy to, but kind of going on social media and conversing with some of my very hardcore Beyonce stans, I know that there's a lot of this that's interesting in terms of Cajun music and like paying homage to like her Cajun roots.
00:11:29
Speaker
And that's all that I can say about that. I am like super not knowledgeable, but I think there's a reason why you're experiencing a disconnect is because there is very clearly a lot of undertones happening here. And so that's okay that you're experiencing that disconnect.
00:11:47
Speaker
yeah and i some of my friends were talking about an homage to i think her uncle yeah who was gay um that like not trying to spread false information just in conversations with people about the album which which i am totally here for and again it's not that i every song when i listen to it i'm like i can get like fucked up to this
00:12:09
Speaker
whole album but it's just there's there's something about it that that's not hitting us the strongest composition of Beyonce it doesn't feel like her but i'm not her like to your point like how am i supposed to know anything about who Beyonce actually is i am just a spectator in the usual ways of her as a celebrity giving us
00:12:36
Speaker
her expressions in a given point in her life.
Pop and Disco Influence
00:12:40
Speaker
But it's just there's something there that's like gnawing at me. But it's like I recognize fully. To be kind of, I guess, to play like doubles advocate a little bit, I'm interested what this is going to do in a kind of resurgence of disco.
00:12:56
Speaker
which we have been seeing a lot just in terms of like our infatuation with ABBA over the pandemic has just skyrocketed. But there is like a super weird Halsey someone else song. It's like a collab that's very like
00:13:14
Speaker
sounds very breathy and very disco. Also, my goodness, Olivia Newton-John, who truly is just an enigma because I feel like if you, I always find her albums like in consignment shops or interesting vintage shops and you can find her music under like disco, under pop, under country. I feel like she's just everything and
00:13:40
Speaker
I don't know, there is a moment that we're experiencing where we feel like artists are really looking at a full scope of music heritage and also personal identity and going for it. So it's just a lot to unpack. And it's super fascinating.
Pop Music Complexity
00:13:57
Speaker
so in love with this mishmash of things that are happening and i think it's fantastic and that's again like i i promise you one million thousand percent there is no way i am here trying to like compare gaga and beyonce it's just so topical for me at this moment and listening back to chromatica with things like babylon with enigma like we are getting this like very
00:14:21
Speaker
Present very influential what you're talking speaking to to these musical transitions to the creation of kind of another world We've had all this time to see the effects of chromatica. I'll be interested to see the effects of Renaissance because I'll just be keeping an eye on kind of more of the disco trends and the influence But I think also what we're describing is I think pop music is getting very complicated I think that this is a little bit of a turning point and I think our
00:14:51
Speaker
Brains are used to also absorbing the na na na music and things are changing a little bit and we have to get used to consuming that Something to think about yeah, absolutely excellent shitty chatty we could keep
00:15:07
Speaker
Chitty Chatty about this
Daria Foner's Background
00:15:09
Speaker
for a while. Obviously, but I'm so glad. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to let my feelings out. I really appreciate it. You're so welcome. I'm such a gracious co-host. Oh my God, you really are. But we can't be too selfish right now because we have an amazing special guest. Gianna, will you tell everyone all about her?
00:15:26
Speaker
Absolutely. So today we are joined by Daria Foner. Daria is an art historian in native New Yorker. She completed her PhD at Columbia University where her dissertation, Collaborative Endeavors in the Career of Andrea del Sarto, focused on the creative practices of 16th century Florentine visual and performing arts. Prior to joining the Sotheby's old master paintings department, she worked at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York.
00:15:55
Speaker
She previously held curatorial positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick Collection and contributed to exhibitions at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Columbia University's Wallach Gallery.
00:16:07
Speaker
She received her BA from Princeton University and her Master's in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge and has lectured publicly and presented at academic conferences in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France. Prior to attending Princeton, Daria was a member of the Norwegian National Ballet.
00:16:27
Speaker
So she is everything and she's really incredible and we're so excited for you all to get to meet her and join this little discussion. So we are going to take a little break and when we come back we'll be joined by Daria Thoner.
00:17:11
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Daria, thank you so much for being here with us. We are so excited to have you. You must tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us how you entered the field of art history and also a little bit about your primary research focus. Well, first, let me just say that it is a pleasure to be speaking with you both. And thank you for having me as a guest on the podcast.
00:17:39
Speaker
I can't really remember a time when the arts weren't a part of my life. When I was growing up, I was a very serious ballet dancer. My grandmother was a painter, and I would often go to museums with her when I was very, very young. And so studying the arts was something that was sort of just very natural to me. It was part of my life.
00:18:03
Speaker
from the very beginning. And when I was in college, I began studying art history. I spent a semester in Florence doing study abroad. When I graduated, I spent a year at Cambridge. And then I came back to the United States and did my PhD at Columbia, where I focused on the Italian Renaissance and wrote my dissertation on the 16th century Florentine painter Andrea del Sarto.
00:18:34
Speaker
You know, I love a good art historical family. I feel like Bianca and I talk about that so much. It's not coincidental that her and I have entered the same field. This is not a coincidence, folks.
Research on Belle da Costa Green
00:18:49
Speaker
the bias of our household was very strong. My father is an American historian and my mother is a dance historian. And I like to think of art history as sort of the meeting of those two in the middle, you know, it like brings or at least the type of art history that I really that I find, you know, most appealing and most exciting is sort of very much like a cultural history.
00:19:16
Speaker
And so it really is a nice marriage between those two disciplines. What a freakin romantic story. That speaks to what Giana and I talk about broadly what art history can be in general are all of these different things coming together and it's not
00:19:37
Speaker
that kind of traditional two-dimensional, you know, aspect that you get in a very kind of dated Western art history class. But this is all of these different fields coming together. And we love a romantic art history story. Oh, my gosh, what a lovely way to start. So I had the pleasure of getting a sneak peek of this story a few weeks ago.
00:20:02
Speaker
which is how you got invited to be on the podcast. And you have just spoken to your fascinating background in the field. You have worked at the Met, the Frick, you have a background at the Morgan Library, obviously. And I am so excited for you to share this amazing story about your research on Belle de Costa Green. And we would just love it if you could share this with us.
00:20:31
Speaker
Absolutely. So as Bianca, as you just said, I was at the Morgan Library and Museum for three years. I was the research associate to the director and I got to work on a lot of sort of institutional projects.
00:20:50
Speaker
initiatives having to do with the early history of the institution, its inception, the construction of the McKim, Mead & White Library, the sort of architectural heart of the Morgan, even today.
00:21:06
Speaker
And one of the most compelling projects that I worked on while I was there had to do with the Morgan's first director, a woman named Belle da Costa Green. She was the director of the Morgan for over 20 years, and she was really a powerful force in her own right. And during the pandemic, when we were all working offsite,
00:21:35
Speaker
I became one of the two directors of a very large scale transcription project. And part of the idea behind the project was that we would be able to involve people from many different departments in the museum, people who really couldn't work offsite. So this would enable them to
00:22:00
Speaker
you know, continue to be employed. So people, for instance, in visitor services. You know, if there are no visitors and the museum is closed, it's difficult to keep people in visitor services employed. And so we worked with a lot of people in visitor services and departments like that. And basically we trained them and began this transcription project. And we were working to transcribe the 600 plus letters that Belle Dacosta-Green wrote to her
00:22:30
Speaker
sometime paramour Bernard Berenson, who himself was a very important 20th century Italian Renaissance art historian. And this project sort of led me down a wonderful research pathways into Beldacosta Green,
00:22:52
Speaker
and particularly into her early life and education. So sorry if you hear the little dog in the background. That's my dog Quincy who just wants everybody to know that she's here too. So I became very interested in Beldacosta Green. Within the last year there have been two
00:23:14
Speaker
fictional accounts of her life published. So there has been sort of renewed attention brought to her life and brought to her successes and achievements. But when we began the project, none of those were out. And there is one biography that was written about her in 2007, An Illuminated Life. But a lot of her background, there were a lot of questions that remained.
00:23:42
Speaker
And part of that was, by her own design, she oftentimes purposely obfuscated her early life or aspects of it, and the ephemerality of the historical record. So, Felda Costa Green was born in 1879 in Washington, D.C. to Genevieve Ida Fleet and Richard T. Greener, who were both very light-skinned African-Americans.
00:24:11
Speaker
Richard T. Greener was a prominent public intellectual. He was a dean of Howard Law School for a brief period. And he was widely known to be the first African-American man to graduate from Harvard College in 1870. However, by the time that Belle Green was a teenager, the family had relocated to New York
00:24:41
Speaker
And I was able to discover, doing various types of in-depth archival research, that her parents had separated and her mother had begun passing as white. She began telling people that, you know, her people knew who her husband was, but she would tell people that she herself was white.
00:25:05
Speaker
And by 1900, Belle Green and all four of her siblings crossed the color line. So for Belle Green's entire adult life, she passed. And when we think about passing, a topic that has received a lot of attention recently,
00:25:27
Speaker
in part because of Rebecca Hall's film adaptation on Netflix of Nella Larson's novel, published in 1929, Passing. You know, it's important to remember that even in the North, America was a deeply segregated and racist country. This was the era of Jim Crow.
00:25:49
Speaker
And there were tremendous barriers that African American men and women faced, not just in terms of career advancement, but in terms of voting rights, in terms of housing.
00:26:05
Speaker
We can have a whole podcast episode about all of those things. But Belle Green, they changed their last name from Greener to Green with an E. And Belle Green and several of her siblings adopted the middle name Dacosta and told people that they were Portuguese or that they were of Portuguese descent.
00:26:28
Speaker
And so Belle Green's story is fascinating because it's the story of a woman who really reached the very, very pinnacle of her career. I think she was probably the greatest librarian scholar of the 20th century, but it is also a story of a woman who overcame incredible amounts of adversity, but who also, you know, was sort of forced by society to pass as white in order to achieve
00:26:58
Speaker
her successes. Daria, I have a lot of questions for you, but a lot of what you just said really harkens back to the research that I found on Belle de Costa Green, which is pretty exclusively from the Morgan Library website. First of all, I want to backtrack and I want to talk about you said that you were part of this project transcribing these letters and these records.
00:27:25
Speaker
I'm curious if you also had a hand in the knowledge that's accessible on the website, because I feel like a lot of that was really verbatim of what I took in through the research accessible online. Absolutely. So the Morgan is planning an exhibition devoted to Bell Green for 2024.
00:27:45
Speaker
2024 will mark the centenary of the founding of the Morgan Library as a public institution. It was incorporated with Bell Green and its helm in 1924. So the letters project is sort of one component of the exhibition program. And the idea is that the letters project, you know, the Morgan, we were working with
00:28:11
Speaker
Harvard with Villa Itati, which is the center for the study of Italian Renaissance culture, which is in Florence. And there's going to be a website sort of hosted by the Morgan and Itati that's going to make all of these letters publicly available, searchable, etc.
00:28:32
Speaker
But when these fictional accounts of Belle Green's life emerged and one of them was featured, it was chosen as a Good Morning America book club pick. So people really became interested and they started contacting the Morgan with questions. Who was she? Where can we go for information? You know, they're really
00:28:52
Speaker
there were no resources about her life that people could access. And so we created these sort of pages, these web pages that introduced her, that talked about the letters, that talked about some of her professional achievements, just to be able to give people sort of a baseline understanding of who she was and what the arc of her career looked like. Yeah.
00:29:20
Speaker
One found it very interesting, specifically the information accessible online, because I was curious about the main content that was curated for Belt Acosta Green. But of course, the Morgan libraries, what I feel like people are coming there for is the archives.
00:29:38
Speaker
So I am kind of curious in terms of, before I get into my next question for you is, do you find now that information about Belle is coming out, that people are coming to the Morgan Library to learn exclusively about her? Or is it still really the main kind of attraction is the intensive archive that the library has to offer? I think the hope is that Morgan can become a place where people
00:30:08
Speaker
who are interested in Belle Green and want, you know, have a hunger for learning more about her can go. I think it's in the works that there will be a permanent installation of some kind, a permanent exhibition dedicated to Belle Green. That's not the case now. And for decades, you could go to the Morgan and there really was, there were maybe an image or two of Belle Green, but there wasn't, her presence I think wasn't felt very strongly.
00:30:35
Speaker
But I hope that that will change. And I think that people at the Morgan also hope that will change.
Belle da Costa Green's Impact at Morgan Library
00:30:42
Speaker
Daria, I am wondering if you can speak to the relationship that Belle had as this kind of founder of a major US museum and how she was initiated and how she came into this role. So her first point of contact with the Morgan family was
00:31:05
Speaker
when she was working at Princeton, at the Princeton University Library, probably as a cataloger. We don't know exactly what her position was, but in all likelihood she was a cataloger or a clerk of some sort. And
00:31:19
Speaker
JP Morgan's nephew, Junius Spencer Morgan, who was an alum, an alumnus of Princeton, and a bibliophile, an ardent bibliophile. He amassed the greatest collection of Virgil Liana in the United States, which he gave to Princeton throughout his life. He was serving as the associate librarian there.
00:31:45
Speaker
He, in 1905, he basically recommended Bell Green to his uncle. Pierpont Morgan collected everything. Whatever you can possibly think of, he collected it. But he really became a book and manuscript collector in the late 1890s.
00:32:06
Speaker
And by 1905, when construction on his library on site at the Morgan, so that's on East 36th Street, as that was nearing completion, he was looking to hire a librarian, a professional librarian to work with him, to build his collection, to catalog his collection, to liaise with scholars. And so Junius recommended Bell.
00:32:34
Speaker
And in, sorry, this is like a little point, but I really try not to say Belle. I always try to say green because something that I noticed, whenever we refer to people like JP Morgan, we always say Morgan.
00:32:50
Speaker
But whenever we refer to women, oftentimes we refer to them by their first names. And so, unless I'm speaking about Pierpont and Junius, which with the Morgans, one sort of has to do because there are so many JP's and so many Junius's in the family.
Belle da Costa Green's Legacy and Erasure
00:33:07
Speaker
I really try to refer to Belle Green as green, just as sort of a small way of underscoring the fact that she was just as important a player in the history of the Morgan and in its institutional development as all of these white men.
00:33:26
Speaker
So, Belle Green was introduced to Pierpont Morgan in 1905. She was hired as his assistant librarian. And by late 1906, she was the librarian. With her own assistant, librarian Ada Thurston, she went on to become J.P. Morgan's chief consultant in all bibliographic matters. She basically had a carte blanche to buy anything she saw fit.
00:33:57
Speaker
at pretty much any price. She would go to Europe, meet with
00:34:02
Speaker
all of the most important dealers, go to the most important auctions, negotiate, and she was a fierce negotiator, but she would also work with scholars so that they had access to the collection, so that they could publish parts of the collection. Following Pierpont Morgan's death in 1913, she then went on to continue to serve sort of as family, the Morgan family librarian in a sense, working for J.P. Morgan's son, Jack.
00:34:33
Speaker
So there was an 11-year period when she was working with Jack before the Morgan Library, or the Pierpont Morgan Library, as it was then known, was formally incorporated. One of the most interesting things that I learned about Belle Green was
00:34:52
Speaker
just how frequently she was being consulted by other directors, curators, definitely, but really directors. As other institutions, institutions that we might sort of consider sister institutions were being formed in the first half of the 20th century. And by this, I mean the Frick Collection, the Huntington, the Walters in Baltimore. She would even be consulted by people at the Metropolitan Museum of Art asking,
00:35:22
Speaker
about what kind of salaries she paid her employees. She was sort of an expert on cultural institutions themselves. And so I think that when we think about her influence and her legacy, it's much larger than just the Morgan Library. Of course, she shaped the collection probably more than any other individual. She shaped the direction that the Morgan Library followed as
00:35:51
Speaker
a scholarly research institution and she shaped the kinds of educational programs that it offered from the very beginning she was hosting lectures and bringing in graduate seminars and
00:36:07
Speaker
all sorts of different societies would come and visit and she would speak to them. All of these sort of ideas of hers and all of these practices that she adopted that are now very much central to the missions of most cultural institutions, you know, were sort of disseminated out from her across the country.
00:36:30
Speaker
And I certainly hope that the exhibition will be able to really bring that to the fore. And listening to you describe the extent of her work that also, as you said, surpasses this collection and surpasses this institution that goes beyond that is just even more astonishing to me.
00:36:54
Speaker
when I think about her erasure from the canon in which she built. So I have a somewhat of an interesting question for you. And this is also coming from a person who didn't know of this historical figure before having you on the show and learning about you and your research as well. But in doing my own little research about Greene,
00:37:19
Speaker
two common questions came up when you just Google her name. One is, was she a real person, which I think you kind of spoke to a little bit of the fictional books and also transcribing some of the actual letters that we have from her. There seems to be a little bit of uncertainty there. And the second is, was she black, which is what you also spoke to with her being white passing. So I think that these questions are very
00:37:47
Speaker
transparent and the erasure of black icons in Western history. However, again, I think her specific erasure is so fascinating when knowing her legacy now and when knowing specifically her ties to the Morgans, which is a family who has a huge lasting legacy today and
00:38:11
Speaker
Also, coming from what you described a pretty established background herself, I think also in terms of entertainment and we love a good historical story and we use that to our advantage in entertainment and pop culture.
00:38:26
Speaker
Her story really lends itself well to somewhat of a social climber. And I'm like, have we not had a show about this? Because Netflix loves an underdog. We love a social climber. That is really specific content that modern audiences consume. So I find that super interesting. On top of all of that,
00:38:51
Speaker
I have been thinking about the moving nope that just came out and I went to go see that a couple weekends ago and it is specifically about the erasure of black icons within cinema. But I've been thinking about this so much and it pinpoints on the idea of the first motion picture and how the first motion picture was a horse and of a black jockey, right? And how we don't know who this black jockey is and how we have to specifically
00:39:19
Speaker
make up this story. And that's the whole point of Nope is, even though this is a fictitious film about aliens, we are still rewriting black people into the narrative, because we have nothing else to go off of. So if it's fictional, who cares, at least we're writing ourselves back into the story. So in terms of you know, we love a good pop historical mash up, I'm curious about
00:39:44
Speaker
Literally, it just has to have 10 questions. I apologize. Just tell me your thought story. Gianna, I am ruling. The world's colliding. And we have the timeliness of a fantastic Jordan Peele motion picture out. Oh, my god. This is just like juice. You know what I was thinking today? I had a phone call at work. And I'm like, Gianna, you're very long-winded. And you need to not be that. And here I am asking you.
00:40:12
Speaker
10 questions. So I want you to know that I know it. Because I was like, I'm not going to be able to remember all of these. So I did grab a pencil and jot a few of them down because they were all excellent. Juice box over you is what it is.
00:40:31
Speaker
So hold my juice box. I just feel as though there is a lot of mysticism about her and maybe you feel that way, maybe you don't because you are at the forefront of this research, but how do you feel? Well, I think the question of her erasure, I think might be a bit strong, but at least partial erasure from history, certainly from sort of the New York cultural canon is very real.
00:40:59
Speaker
I say this because I have this article right next to me. So this is from the New York Times. So when Ellen Futter retired as the director of the Natural History Museum in New York, she was a long serving director there. I noticed this because I thought about Belle Green. There's a little, you can see right here, I sort of marked it.
00:41:23
Speaker
This is a quote that's pulled out from the article, the first woman to head a major museum based in New York City. And I thought to myself, that is Belle Green. You know,
00:41:35
Speaker
And that's the New York Times. So I think there is still a ways to go in terms of recuperating her reputation and reinstating her place in the history of libraries, in the history of the Morgan itself, in the history of New York cultural institutions. Was she a real person?
00:41:59
Speaker
Yes, she was a real person. But there are certainly aspects of her life that I think she herself fictionalized. And so that leads to a lot of ambiguity. And in some ways, I think that's part of the reason why her life story is quite so ripe for fiction writers to delve into. I should add, fiction writers make me so jealous.
00:42:28
Speaker
They are unencumbered by facts, and they get to use the powers of their imagination. It's really, it's a great- It must be nice. You get it, exactly. That's what I hear. What a bunch of losers.
00:42:44
Speaker
We have to sit over here writing stupid facts about artists that we'll never know are actually true, but we're just going to write them down as if they are facts. Here's my hypothesis. I have a lot of supporting evidence, but I will never be able to give you a 100% guarantee. I'm just going to spin it like I can.
00:43:03
Speaker
Yes, so with Belle Green's life, part of the reason that there are these fictional aspects, like she sort of would always give slightly different stories about where she was from.
Exploring Belle Green's Racial Identity
00:43:14
Speaker
Was she born in Washington, DC? Was she born in Virginia? Sometimes she would just say she was born in the South. Who were her parents? The family disassociated themselves from Richard T. Greener, the father. But interestingly, Richard T. Greener,
00:43:31
Speaker
who was appointed by President William McKinley to a consular post in Vladivostok, Siberia. It's just, it's wild thinking about going to Vladivostok at the turn of the 20th century. Although it was a very important diplomatic spot, you know, historically speaking at that time. But Richard T. Greener,
00:43:56
Speaker
who went on basically to have a second family. He had three children with a Japanese woman. In his Harvard alumni bulletin for the entirety of his life, he listed his family members, including Belle Green. I mean, as Belle Greener. But that was one of the ways that Gene Strauss
00:44:18
Speaker
who wrote sort of the defining biography of J.P. Morgan, was able to connect the dots and discover or uncover or recover, in a sense, who was Belle Dacosta Green. Well, she was born Belle Marion Greener. And on her birth certificate, she's listed as colored. And I think this leads to the next question. Was she black?
00:44:47
Speaker
According to American US law at the time, so that is the one drop, you know, so race is defined by one drop. So you have one drop of African American blood, you are black. So according to those standards, yes, she was black.
00:45:05
Speaker
We have no idea how she viewed herself. We have no idea how she defined herself racially speaking. In public documents, so on her passport, in census records, she's always listed or listed herself as white.
00:45:22
Speaker
But I have never found any kind of statement written account in which she talks about her own racial identity. So I think it's very difficult to say. And people are interested, you know, I mean, it's a very compelling question. It's a question we everyone wants to know the answer to. But it's also fundamentally unanswerable. Did I am I missing? I feel like I may be missing a few things. It's perfection like this.
00:45:53
Speaker
Oh my gosh, this is wildly fascinating, as we like to say. Daria, basically, I just want you to produce the Netflix series on this. Yes, so I should add. So there is- That's really what I was getting to, just waiting for you to post your big news. Is this an exclusive, like with Netflix? It is not an exclusive, but I will say, so there are two writers who co-wrote a fictional account of Belgreen called The Personal Librarian.
00:46:20
Speaker
And apparently, now I forget which, but a production company apparently like optioned the rights for that book and are planning on turning the fictional account into, you know, into some kind of, I don't know if it's with Netflix, but into some kind of production. If I'm being perfectly honest, I'm sort of torn about
00:46:50
Speaker
I, on the one hand, I feel that the more attention paid to Belle Green, the better. Because I think that her story needs to be told. I think it's an empowering story, but it's also a story that reveals some of the underside of the history of this nation. But I also think that she deserves, in a sense, better. For sure.
00:47:17
Speaker
You know, fiction is great and it's a wonderful conduit for telling stories, but her own life is so fascinating. It doesn't really need embellishment. And I also think that
00:47:29
Speaker
You know, some of these fictional accounts really focus on her personal life. And she had a fascinating personal life. I mean, everything about Belgreen is fascinating.
Belle Green's Personal and Professional Relationships
00:47:38
Speaker
But I also think that her professional achievements, wonderfully fascinating and deserve equal, if not more attention.
00:47:48
Speaker
I have so many thoughts. They're all being put in my head. I know you had mentioned a little bit about this paramour that she had in Italy. And I don't want to tackle that topic for today because I think exactly to your point, I am so excited to hear about the legacy that this woman had for our field of study and your career and your research. And I think it's she's so impactful as a
00:48:18
Speaker
professional. And so as we're talking about this, I can already see like the romantic drama unfolding in this. I do want to say one thing though, which I think is important. So Belle Green and Bernard Berenson were correspondents for 40 years and they were romantically involved at the beginning. He was in basically what we would today call an open marriage.
00:48:42
Speaker
But some of the letters are really amorous and emotive, like really over the top in a sense, in a great way when you're reading them. But there's also so much intellectual depth in the correspondence that I think to simplify their relationship as one that is purely amorous in nature is a disservice to both of them.
00:49:08
Speaker
And that was something that really came through in the letters. Because of course, once the sort of passion had faded, there were decades still of correspondence.
Auction Houses and Art History
00:49:19
Speaker
I want to move on to some other questions. As soon as the show comes out, we'll have a watch party. When the exhibition comes out, we will have the expert to evaluate the exhibition for us. Now, you work at Sotheby's in their old master paintings department.
00:49:40
Speaker
And at APT, we are always fascinated in how people navigate careers in the field of art history. We also have listeners who have reached out to us. They've talked about their careers in auction houses and how they have interest in auction houses in this field of study, in this potential career. So can you give us the kind of insider scoop on the auction world? How did you find the move from museums, archives, libraries to auctions?
00:50:08
Speaker
So I've been at Sotheby's now since January. So about seven months, or just maybe eight months now. It has been some of the most exhausting, yet exhilarating months of my life. Two things really stick out. Number one, I always thought that I was an objects-based art historian. In that, I really tried to focus, to draw narratives out of the works of art themselves.
00:50:38
Speaker
Of course, I also loved archival research and was able to really delve into that when I was working on my dissertation in particular. Then I got to an auction house, and now I understand being an object-based art historian is.
00:50:54
Speaker
much of the time all we have is the object. It comes to us with no name. It really is just solving a mystery and the only clue we have is the work of art. So we have to
00:51:09
Speaker
look at it and examine it in every possible way. You know, try to, like, get everything we can out of it. And that takes very close and sustained, careful looking. Which I love, but that is, as I say, I didn't really understand what being an object-based art historian meant.
00:51:34
Speaker
The other thing is the pace. It is breakneck. And I think back, I'm like, wow, museum work. There's something that seems so leisurely about having four years to organize an exhibition with, let's say it's a really large exhibition, so 150 loans.
00:51:57
Speaker
Our sales have 100, 150 objects in them, and we hold sales multiple times a year. And we are cataloging every single one of those works. Perhaps not to the absolute depth that curators do for museum catalogs, but yeah, the speed is breakneck. I have never been a fast rider. I am now, purely out of necessity, a fast rider.
00:52:28
Speaker
So I kind of want to go off of that a little bit because you're already talking about like work culture and vibe and adaptations. So I've just been extremely curious because it's been different for a lot of different folks that we've talked to. Some of them, you know, are going back to museums and they feel like it's healthy and or and they've left an auction house. So I'm just curious for for you and in your experience in terms of
00:52:52
Speaker
Essentially, what has been your healthiest work environment? Is it Sotheby's? Is it the auction house? Or are we still adjusting? I do think that I am in a unique department in that so I'm in the old masters department, old master paintings department at Sotheby's. I think it is a particularly collegial and collaborative department.
00:53:17
Speaker
So I cannot speak to auction houses at large. I cannot even speak to Sotheby's at large. In fact, I'm sure we are an anomaly.
00:53:25
Speaker
but it is a fantastic work environment. There is so much knowledge, but there's also, as I say, it's deeply collaborative.
Art World Fluidity and Relevance
00:53:35
Speaker
And I love that. I wrote my dissertation on Andrea del Sarto, but on the way that he collaborated with other artists. So collaboration is very near and dear to my heart. Every single painting that comes in, we look at all together and discuss.
00:53:52
Speaker
every time we're doing evaluation we do it together. You know I for instance will do the preliminary research and then perhaps we'll like do the write-up eventually but we are always discussing and questioning. You know it's not that we agree on things all the time but I find it a really engaging way to learn and
00:54:17
Speaker
There can be, you know, oftentimes museum work is collaborative in certain ways, but there are many parts about it that are much more solitary in nature. So for me personally, I really like that aspect, that approach in the auction world.
00:54:36
Speaker
I will say that when I was considering the move, I was very much aware of the fact that there is more fluidity
00:54:47
Speaker
now between museums, auction houses, galleries. People move back and forth. It's a much more porous relationship. Whereas in the past, I think it was sort of like you were in your lane and that was it. You couldn't change lanes. And I think that is really beneficial because I think that people develop different types of skills depending on the type of institution where they're working. And I think that sort of cross-pollination is wonderful.
00:55:16
Speaker
You know, people in auction houses see so much. It's amazing. And they have memories that are like lock boxes. I don't understand. The chairman of our department, he'll be like, oh, this painting, it came up, you know, in 1986 and sold for X amount of money. But then, of course, you know, in a museum context, you have people who sell at really deep scholarly research.
00:55:46
Speaker
Not that auction houses don't do that. In fact, auction houses now do that much more than they used to. But so, yes, I think that the more that people can work together across institutions, the better. What a novel art historical analysis. I mean, that fluidity in career paths makes us all better learners. Wild.
00:56:14
Speaker
Here at APT, we do love to end with a fun kind of poppy, if you will, question. And you just mentioned your dissertation, and Gianna and I just had to ask, I mean, you're the perfect guest. It only seems fitting that we ask a Renaissance professional, what did you think of Beyonce's Renaissance album? Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing. I haven't listened to it.
00:56:46
Speaker
We totally put you on the spot, literally, last night. It was 9 o'clock at night. You've been exposed. I was like, I have to ask her this question. But I was thrilled that she chose Renaissance as the name for her album. I will say that and I will also say that so much of her imagery is carefully considered and art historically informed.
00:57:09
Speaker
And I think it's amazing the way that she chooses, you know, where she does her shoots. I mean, that whole video that was in the Louvre. Yeah. Ape shit. Like everything about that was fantastic. I find that very exciting. You know, in the old masters world, we're always talking about ways of showing people that
00:57:31
Speaker
Old Masters are contemporary, even though they're called Old Masters. A terrible name for them. We need to rebrand. I don't know what, like, to what, but we need a rebrand. I mean, just hire Beyonce. Like, you know, she probably comes cheap. I'm sure we can afford her. Yeah, no biggie. No biggie. Beyonce will be the Old Masters rebrand and I am here for it.
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:57:54
Speaker
you know, if you do decide to listen to it, please let us know and we can do a little Instagram post with like Daria's Renaissance. Fabulous. I do plan on listening to it. I just... I think that's all that we have for you. We want to be respectful of your time. Daria, thank you so, so much for joining us on the podcast. I really feel like the most fanciest art historical journalist that there has ever been.
00:58:19
Speaker
I am so delighted. It was a real pleasure for me to speak with the two of you. As I say, I think the more people that know about and learn about Belle Green, the better. And so I could talk about her until the cows come home. So it was a real treat. Please come back and we can talk some more in 2023 or whatever, 24.
00:58:46
Speaker
What, what, whatever, whatever it happens. Quincy's like, I am not sure. Quincy's like, Mom!
00:59:01
Speaker
Well, Daria, thank you again so much for being with us. We appreciate you coming on the pod for everybody listening wherever you are at. Thank you for joining us and we will talk to you all in two Tuesdays. Bye everyone. Hi everyone. Art Pop Talk's executive producers are me, Bianca Martucci Fink. And me, Gianna Martucci Fink. Music and sounds are by Josh Turner and photography is by Adrian Turner.
00:59:29
Speaker
and our graphic designer is Sid Hammond.