August 4, 2005 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Peter Lewis’s resignation in January as chairman of the board of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Foundation, in New York City, was met with shock in the art world. Mr. Lewis, a car-insurance executive, had donated $77-million to the museum during his 12-year tenure as a trustee, and no one expected him to leave.
But in its August issue, Vanity Fair traces how disagreements with the museum’s director, Thomas Krens, over the Guggenheim’s finances and plans to expand internationally rankled Mr. Lewis and left him deeply troubled about the museum’s future.
A former college art professor, Mr. Krens’s reputation as both a “visionary” and an “egomaniac” preceded his arrival at the Guggenheim in 1988, the magazine says. Soon after, he drew fire when he sold several major works to pay for new acquisitions, sparred with some members of the Guggenheim family over relocating collections, and clashed with Ronald O. Perelman, who chaired the board of trustees in the mid-1990s, over plans to build a new wing in downtown Manhattan.
But Mr. Krens’s push to expand the Guggenheim by opening new affiliates — in Berlin, Las Vegas, and Bilbao, Spain — did have many supporters. The Spanish branch was a “howling success,” the magazine says, attracting nearly a million visitors a year. When Mr. Lewis was tapped as a permanent replacement for Mr. Perelman, in 1999, he shared Mr. Krens’s vision, and publicly backed the director for several years before voicing concerns, according to Vanity Fair.
By 2002, though, the museum was posting significant losses on its investments, and Mr. Lewis had to ante up $12-million to pay off bills and debts. Meanwhile, Mr. Krens was pursuing plans for new branches in Brazil, Mexico, and Taiwan, the magazine says. Mr. Lewis also objected to public-relations strategies like the Guggenheim Motorcycle Club, a cadre of Hollywood celebrities who rode their bikes to promote museum shows.
Their disagreements came to a head in January, when Mr. Lewis called for the director’s resignation during a board meeting. Support for Mr. Krens from the board was nearly unanimous, however: All but Mr. Lewis voted to keep him on.
“As far as I am concerned, he has saved the museum from mediocrity and has forced institutions around the world to rethink a lazy and elitist attitude,” one board member wrote to Vanity Fair, noting how the museum has reached out to people in different industries, cities, and cultures under Mr. Krens’s watch.
But some former trustees and Guggenheim staff members are less optimistic about the director’s continued leadership. One past board member, who was not named in the magazine, said the board made its decision less out of confidence in Mr. Krens than a desire to avoid the search for a new director. Meanwhile, that same board member said it would be a near-impossible task to attract another trustee as generous and supportive as Mr. Lewis.
The article is available online at http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/050718roco01.
