From a vast distance of several decades, from a choice spot on the couch of the retirement home, or from a hospital bed hooked up to a gazillion tubes, one might be tempted to reflect on the best years of our lives. For some, they may be the undergraduate experience, for others the years spent raising kids or starting a successful business. For me, they were unquestionably the time spent at Columbia, between roughly 1975 and ’78. A friend referred to his pursuits in the graduate English department as “intellectual hedonism,” and I would say the same about art history.
But there I was an adult with a small sour taste of the working world under her belt, used to living in borderline poverty, not exactly sure what I could do with a PhD in art history (for I was then on the doctoral track) but reasonably certain it had to be a lot better than tabulating production costs for textbooks.
I still have the full roster of courses I took toward the master’s (which you can possibly read scanned here), and it still thrills me to remember some of these classes: Italian Painting 16th century, 17th-century Dutch Painting, Early Renaissance Florentine Painting, Rome—17th-century Architecture, Futurism Art and Theory, Modern Sculpture I and II, Problems in mid-19th-century French Art….bring ‘em on, baby!
Looking back, I realize how heavily weighted toward white male European art it all was, but feminism had yet to make any real inroads into the discipline and we certainly never studied artists of color.
My first semester, as was required of all incoming graduate students, I took what was called a pro-seminar, mine in modern art, which meant we wrote a couple of papers and did enormous amounts of reading—Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, Barbara Rose, Leo Steinberg, even the dreaded Rosalind Krauss. One of my first papers was a detailed description of a painting by the Futurist artist Gino Severini (I think it was), in which I completely failed to notice a female figure at the center of the canvas! No matter. I hated Futurism, But I did eventually get involved with one of the teachers of the seminar, whose passion was for that peculiar band of hot-headed Italians.
What one remembers best, after nearly five decades, is not so much the substance of most courses (though I do recall the strangeness of late Titian, and a semester-long adventure that seemed to be almost exclusively about the brushstrokes of the post-Impressionists). No, one remembers much more vividly a handful of professors who taught during those years. Theodore Reff, who just published The Letters of Edgar Degas (at the age of 92), could stand in front of a classroom with only five or six notecards in hand and lecture for a full hour. Tiny Edith Porada, an expert on ancient cylinder seals, took us through the Met after hours to examine the art and artifacts in the Egyptian galleries. When a guard challenged her presence in the sacrosanct Sackler Wing, she pulled herself up to her full four feet eleven inches and roundly berated him: “I have been coming here for years, and you have no right to question my authority.”
But most impressive of all was the late, indisputably great Kirk Varnedoe, one of the leaders of my pro-seminar and the most popular lecturer in modern and contemporary art. He was breathtakingly handsome, a commanding presence at the podium who gestured and—yes!—actually sweated with excitement over some of the works that popped up on the screen. A deep resonant voice with a soft trace of Georgia. Always, it seemed, vividly in the moment. He also had a way of making you alert to the differences in works of art, like why the anodyne surfaces of Rodin’s marbles were so much less compelling than the wrought textures of his sculptures in bronze. It was he instead of the assistant lecturer for whom I should have made a serious play, but he seemed a little too godlike, too remote, and too far out of my league. And my chances in my own eyes went plummeting when, during a student-teacher conference, I watched in horror as a roach crawled out of my purse.
It was my great good fortune to fall in with a group of friends from the English department, bright young things who liked to party and play think-y games in our rambling run-down lodgings near the campus (Columbia had no real official housing for grad students, as I recall). A favorite was a contest called Novel, in which the real first line from a well-known book was tossed into a basket along with the made-up lines we contributed. Points for whoever got it right and whoever got the most votes. We also had old standbys like Scrabble and charades (I thought myself exceptionally clever for acting out The Origin of the Species, from amoeba to fish to reptile to chimpanzee and finally homo erectus).
And we partied late into the night on weekends, stoned-soul gatherings that might end in a group grope on someone’s bed (though I was far too shy to participate—one-on-one was one thing; four or five half-naked bodies was more than I could handle.)
We were fortunate to have in our midst a truly gifted cook who supplied delicacies like asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, homemade eggplant caponata, and treats from Little Italy, such as an elaborate cake from Ferrara’s decorated with candied cherries and nuts, bearing the inscription “Tanti Auguri, Vito!” It was dirt cheap, he hinted darkly, because Vito never arrived to pick up the cake, presumably rubbed out before he could enjoy the festivities.
Some of us paired off into more-or-less stable couples, and I longed to be one of their tribe. I went out a few times with the budding Futurist scholar (the dividing line between students and faculty was much less strict in those days). One night, at the door to my apartment on West 107th Street, I leaned in for a serious good-night kiss. And he confessed that he had a girlfriend upstate, teaching art history at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (such an odd detail to remember). I said I didn’t care. And I never really did. He was a little strange about intimacy, pulling away in bed after making love because he said he didn’t like to be touched before or during sleep.
I was still waiting for The One. He was out there, soon to drift into my empty aching heart.
CARAMELIZED ONION DIP
A favorite at grad-school parties was the drop-dead simple sour-cream-and-onion dip, made with a packet of Lipton’s onion soup and a container of sour cream. But a few years ago, when a friend and I hosted a Mad Men 1960s party I discovered a much better alternative, more complicated to make but so much more satisfying to an adult palate (adapted from howsweeteats.com).
INGREDIENTS
· 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
· 4 sweet onions, chopped fine
· kosher salt and pepper (at least 1/2 teaspoon of each, probably more)
· 1 cup sour cream or plain greek yogurt
· ½ cup mayonnaise
· ½ teaspoon garlic powder
· fresh herbs, like parsley, for topping
INSTRUCTIONS
· Heat the butter in a large skillet or pot over medium heat. Once melted, stir in the onions with a big pinch of salt and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes, just until the onions begin to soften. Turn the heat down to low (or medium-low, if low isn’t cooking them), and cook, stirring often, until the onions are dark brown and caramely, anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, depending on how much you want to babysit them. This will take a while, but the onions are in smaller pieces, so are also more apt to burn. Keep an eye on them and stir often, reducing the heat when needed. Add a splash of water to the pan if it gets dry at any time.
· Let the onions cool slightly before adding them to the dip. Alternately, you can also caramelize the onions a day or two ahead of time! I will caramelize them and store them in a container in the fridge. I do reheat them on low heat (either in a pan or microwave) just to warm the solids up a bit.
· Whisk together the sour cream, mayo, garlic powder and a big pinch of salt and pepper. Once the onions are caramelized, stir them in. Continue to stir until everything is combined - it will come together. Taste the dip and if you need more salt, add it in.
· This stays great in the fridge if you make it ahead of time - it will thicken up a bit. It is also great served immediately. Serve with chips, crackers, pretzels, veggies - anything!
· This stays great in the fridge for a few days! It will thicken up a bit, but will slightly loosen up once it gets back to room temperature.
Pretty great storytelling but I'll pass on the dip.
thumbs up. we need more art history