5 minute read
Portraits of the Good and the Great
By D. Dodge Thompson '66
In my 40 years of public service at the National Gallery of Art in Washington I have had the great privilege of organizing about 750 art exhibitions. In truth, the first time I ever heard the term “art history” was in 1965 when I unwittingly sat down in the Choate classroom of M. Jean-Pierre Cosnard des Closets to discover I had enrolled in a course called “French Civilization Seen through the Arts.” I faced three obstacles: I had to learn to take notes in a dark classroom, I was immobilized by the powerful images that flickered across the screen, and I didn’t speak French. Nonetheless, the lessons and images have stayed with me to this day.
Untitled (Archbishop Desmond Tutu), 2010, by Robert McCurdy. Oil on canvas, 73 x 68 inches. The Cumming Collection. Archbishop Desmond Tutu visited Choate for Community Weekend in October of 1994.
Photos courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery
About 25 years ago at a family reunion I reconnected with the investor and visionary businessman Ian M. Cumming. We found ourselves pondering the power of individuals to make a difference in our society, and the ability of portraits – as rendered by the most talented artists – to capture the essence of such individuals. Ian and his wife, Annette, agreed that we should test our premise and try our hand at commissioning. Our personal shortlist eventually included, among others, Muhammad Ali, Neil Armstrong, John Ashbery, Warren Buffett, President Bill Clinton, Al Gore, the Dalai Lama, Toni Morrison – and how about a group portrait of U.S. Supreme Court Justices O’Connor, Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Kagan – the first four female justices of the country’s highest court? My daunting role was to select and arrange for the artists.
For over a quarter of a century we had the pleasure and honor to commission portraits of those listed above, as well as several other worthies. Most of the paintings have recently been given to the National Portrait Gallery or the National Gallery of Art. Three of the subjects – architect I. M. Pei, human rights advocate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and primatologist Jane Goodall – had a personal connection to Choate.
Untitled (Dame Jane Goodall), 2020, by Robert McCurdy. Oil on canvas, 73 x 68 inches. The Cumming Collection. Dame Jane Goodall came to the Choate campus twice (1992 and 1993) to talk about her ”Roots & Shoots” program.
Photos courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery
Architect Ieoh Ming Pei had a long relationship with Choate Rosemary Hall, an almost 20-year association. The School commissioned the architect to design the eponymous Arts Center on the Wallingford campus in 1968 (opened in 1972), followed by the Science Center (now Carl C. Icahn Center for Science) in 1989. More than a coincidence, in 1968 Mr. Mellon also engaged Pei to design the East Building of the National Gallery on the National Mall, a modernist masterpiece that anticipated and informed Pei’s work at the Louvre Museum in Paris. In his choice of an architect, Mr. Mellon was influenced by his close friends President John F. Kennedy ’35 and his wife, Jacqueline, who early on secured Pei’s reputation by commissioning the 35 th President’s official archive and library in Boston.
I. M. Pei, 1996, by Richard Estes. Oil on canvas, 31 x 56 inches. National Gallery of Art. The Cumming Collection. I. M. Pei is responsible for the design of Choate’s Paul Mellon Arts Center and the Carl C. Icahn Center for Science.
Photos courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery
Estes and Pei agreed that the portrait would be situated in the library atrium. Estes memorably captured the master builder, symbolically and pictorially, as if the architecture were emanating from his prodigious mind.
Untitled (Toni Morrison), 2006, by Robert McCurdy. Oil on canvas, 73 x 68 inches. National Portrait Gallery. Gift of Ian M. and Annette P. Cumming. Here, Toni Morrison poses in front of her completed portrait in 2006.
Photos courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery
The New York-based artist Robert McCurdy (b. 1952) occupies a special place in our portrait project. Rob was not well-known when I became aware of his work in 1995, but his portraits, which rendered his subjects “warts and all” and at a scale 50 percent larger than life, caught my attention. The first portrait we commissioned from Rob was of novelist and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, a painting that immediately went on view at the National Portrait Gallery, where it has become something of a shrine, admired by millions of visitors.
Since 1995 Robert has produced on average one portrait a year, exclusively for the Cummings. Archbishop Desmond Tutu visited Choate for Community Weekend in October of 1994. In addressing the students and faculty on the subject “Freedom Is Breaking Out Everywhere,” he memorably put aside his prepared remarks and exhorted the students to be the “teachers of the world” and said that he was confident they would “handle the world with care.” McCurdy’s portrait was completed in 2010.
The Four Justices, 2012, by Nelson Shanks. Oil on canvas, 85 x 66 inches. National Portrait Gallery. Gift of Ian M. and Annette P. Cumming.
Photos courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery
Choate was early to discover Dame Jane Goodall’s “Roots & Shoots” program. It was founded in 1991 in Tanzania by the pioneering British primatologist with the goal of bringing together youth from preschool to university students to work on environmental, conservation, and humanitarian issues. Dame Jane came to the Choate campus twice to talk about her vision at school meetings in 1992 and 1993. The organization now has local chapters in over 140 countries with more than 8,000 local groups worldwide that involve a diverse group of nearly 150,000 young people. Her portrait, which was completed earlier this year, is on view at the National Portrait Gallery, where it will ultimately reside.
You well might ask what is my favorite portrait of those created as a result of this 25-year program? Well, today my favorite is Nelson Shanks’s portrait of the “Supremes,” the largest work on view at the National Portrait Gallery. But tomorrow, who knows?
D. Dodge Thompson ’66 is Chief of Exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art. He recently authored an essay featured in the book Visionary: The Cumming Family Collection, which can be purchased on the museum’s website at: saamnpgstore. si.edu/visionary-the-cumming-family-collection.html. In 2016, Thompson received Choate’s Alumni Award, along with Dr. Laurie Patton, President of Middlebury College.
