In 1971, a friend hired me to photograph the Everson Museum’s newly appointed director. I’d never seen the new art museum or met an art museum director, so I was unsure what to expect. Ushered into his austere skylit corner office in the I. M. Pei-designed art museum, I stood awkwardly in front of his desk, waiting for him to look up from signing some papers on his desk. Time moved slowly. I shifted my weight from foot to foot.
Sure, Jim Harithas was a titanic figure, an earthmover, but nobody had told me. Even Jim never mentioned his past accomplishments unless it was connected to an anecdote praising an artist or person he had known. His mind was always on what he was doing, what he was reading, what he was thinking about in the present.
The Terra Foundation awarded 57 grants in November 2022, amounting to a total of over $5.5 million, to support projects that expand narratives of American art to transform how stories of American art are told.
Whether directing august art museums or scrappy upstarts, he championed art-world outsiders and socially conscious and political art. He gave Yoko Ono her first solo show.
The humble exterior of the Grey Art Gallery, NYU’s fine arts museum located inside the university’s Silver Center, fails to convey the beauty of the spectacular pieces of art contained within. From Andy Warhol and Keith Haring to Robert Mapplethorpe, the gallery’s current show, “Mostly New: Selectio