By 1958, Ailey had established a dance company to celebrate Black culture in America which he led for more than three decades. AIDS killed him, along with many other members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, memorialized here in an early section of the Quilt.
Studio 54 probably was the only place where our paths might have crossed. Antonio Lopez designed sexy costumes for Ailey's dancers to wear the night the club opened in 1977.
While the exhibit includes filmed and live performance, the Whitney has plumbed its collection for art that inspired Ailey, or was inspired by him. The curators really pulled out the stops, going all the way back to a Thomas Nash illustration of "Emancipation," published in an 1863 edition of Harper's Weekly, as well as commissioning some new works.
They've also organized the works thematically. Judith Jamison, who died the day after my visit to the Whitney, succeeded Ailey after his death in 1989. The company thrived under her leadership for more than two decades.
"Dear Mama" by Karon Davis (2024)
Carmen de Lavallade and Ailey were both born in 1931. His early dance partner, who married Geoffrey Holder, her House of Flowers cast mate, remains alive at 93, more than three decades longer than Ailey, a powerful reminder of how much life he lost.
Portrait of Carmen de Lavallade by Geoffrey Holder (1976)
At the age of five, Ailey began picking cotton with his mother--who had been gang raped by four white men after his father left them--in a rural area of east Texas. In 1941, they moved to California as part of the great migration seeking a better life.
Lena Horne was among the African Americans he saw perform in Los Angeles before moving east, eventually joining her on the stage in the cast of another Broadway musical.
A few years after Ailey arrived in New York, Marian Anderson became the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera. His timing was perfect: high culture doors had finally begun to open.
Marian Anderson by Beauford Delaney (1965)
During the last decade, I have become a great admirer of many of the artists whose works are included in the exhibit
With Chris in town exploring the vibes of post-retirement residence in New York City, the Three Amigos spent several successive Saturdays taking advantage of its museum offerings.
Sultry J. C. Leyendecker spent five decades depicting idealized beefcake on magazine covers--more than 350 for the Saturday Evening Post--and in print ads.
1874-1951
Although the exhibit at the Historical Society was small, the thrust was unmistakable. Look no further than below the tasseled belt in this Ivory soap ad!
It's probably not how the curators of this superb exhibit would like you to think of the Sassoons, but as Chris observed as soon as we read about how the opium trade seeded the family's fortune: "Maybe there's hope yet for the Sacklers."
David Sassoon, the "Treasurer of Bagdhad" and family patriarch, was forced to flee his homeland in the early 19th century. He moved to India and China before his he and his descendants--known as the "Rothschilds of the East"--finally settled in England where their assiduous efforts at assimilation into polite society paid off handsomely. Beauty ran in the family and marrying bankers helped, of course. Shortly after wedding a German one, Rachel commissioned this lovely portrait but the other Sassoons disowned her after she converted from Judaism to Christianity.
This French Rothschild married into the Sassoon family and moved to London where she painted and ran with "The Souls," a group of "personages distinguished for their breeding, beauty, delicacy and discrimination of mind." Fun fact: Jack Huston, he of mutilated face in Boardwalk Empire, is her great-great grandson!
Aline's daughter Sybil parlayed her money and looks into becoming a titled member of the British aristocracy. Cecil Beaton photographed the Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1930. I would not have wanted to announce her name at an event.
Rather than use their wealth to fund cultural institutions like the Sacklers, the Sassoons collected art. No surprise their tastes included Gainsborough. What painter was more representative of Britain's 18th century establishment?
But Phillip, son of Aline and brother of Sybil, clearly had an eye for the unusual, too, acquiring works depicting people with something other than peaches and cream complexions.
The Sassoon men weren't bad to look at either. John Singer Sargent sketched Philip as a young man in 1912. He seems to have spent a lot of his time posing for portraits. Not that there's anything wrong with that!
Only one of 25 Jews in his graduating class at Oxford, he served in World War I and trained as a pilot afterward, eventually becoming the Under Secretary of State for Air.
But more importantly, Philip, forever single and gay, managed to charm his way into the British aristocracy--including Edward VIII, whose abdication he supported--with house parties that evolved from the sybaritic to the discreet.
1922
Sir Philip Sasson by John Singer Sargent (1923)
Amateur painter Winston Churchill was among those luminaries who attended the latter before Philip's premature death of 50 which spared him the pain of World War II as well as the embarrassment of underestimating Hitler. The exhibit contrasts the future prime minister's talent with that of Sargent's.
Ruins of the Cathedral of St. Vaast, Arras, 1918 by Winston Churchill (1920s)
Well, yes, but could Sargent inspire nations with his speeches?
Ruined Cathedral at Arras by John Singer Sargent (1918)
Prior to this exhibit, Vidal and Siegfried were the only Sassoons I could name, and I knew more about the hairdresser than the writer. Here's Siegfried as a boy advertising his beloved Aunt Rachel's newspaper. Although his father had been disinherited for marrying outside the Jewish faith, Aunt Rachel (large portrait above) left him enough pounds sterling so that like his cousin Philip, he could buy his own country manor.
Young Siegfried Sassoon Dressed as a Page by Thomas Ashby Flemons (1896)
Siegfried's mother plucked her son's first name from an opera, a favorite from Wagner's "Ring Cycle."
Despite distinguished service in World War I, Sassoon was nearly court-martialed when he turned against it after losing his closest friend, with whom he may or may not have been having sexual relations. If there's a genetic component to queerness, it appears to run in the Sassoon family. Siegfried enjoyed relationships with men, including Ivor Novello and Stephen Tennant, whose rejection after six years together was quickly followed by marriage to a woman and the birth of a son. But after divorcing his wife, he came back into the fold and befriended both E.M. Forster and J.R. Ackerley.
ca 1916
The exhibit includes Siegfried's war journals which informed his highly acclaimed poetry and novels. More than anything else (except for perhaps the hair products!), they have established the family's legacy and erased the taint of the opium trade.
Even among writers, a picture can be worth a thousand words. Siegfried captioned this drawing "The Soul of an Officer."
There are always new discoveries to be made in the Jewish Museum's permanent collection and temporary exhibits.
