Head of the Philadelphia Museum who Saved Eakins’s “The Gross Clinic” remembered
The New York Times covers the death sudden death of Duchamp scholar Anne d’Harnoncourt. Here is an appraisal by Roberta Smith; the obituary written by William Grimes; and Dinitia Smith’s profile from her appointment as the Director of the Philadelphia Museum in 1996.
NPR has her interview with Terry Gross focusing on Duchamp.
The Philadelphia Inquirer examines her role at the museum and its prospects for future leadership and Karen Heller leaves this indelible image:
Ms. d’Harnoncourt was known for her outgoing manner, oversized art jewelry and shawls, and a gray mane regularly perched above her head in the manner of a Gibson Girl. She seemed of this age and one much earlier, and she carried herself that way. She was museum nobility, the daughter of Rene d’Harnoncourt, the son of a Viennese Count, who helped assemble the Museum of Modern Art.