Beautiful Thursday, lots goin' on

The scene last night at the the Gala Preview of the Fall International Art and Antiques Fair at the 67th Street Armory, benefiting the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer. Center Photo: JH.

Beautiful Thursday in New York with the weatherman alluding to rain coming. Nothing doing. Heat, yes; like summer.

The day. Luncheon at the Mandarin Oriental. For the Center for the Advancement of Women. Honoring outstanding woman “who have demonstrated vision and leadership for the advancement of rights and opportunities of women.”

It was a fundraiser. Faye Wattleton is the head of this organization which was started four years ago. Part of the mission of this organization is to honor certain women to raise awareness about how far women have come, and what is required to create the landscape for realizing all women’s full potential. Another part of the mission is to conduct and sponsor research to identify issues that are important to women, and to understand how women’s daily experiences in their daily lives affect their larger worldview and place in society. The mission is mainly to promote women’s rights and improve the lot of all women not only in the workplace but in academia and in the home.

They honored Suzanne de Passe, the Hollywood producer who started out life working for Berry Gordy at Motown Records, Eleanor Smeal, Women’s rights leader, political analyst, grassroots organizer and editor of MS. Magazine; Helen Thomas – we all know Helen Thomas from the White House press room, the only reporter consistently Man Enough to take on the President’s men and ask the hard questions. Only Woman Enough too; and Cicely Tyson, the actress who has used her career and her roles to stress the power and humanity of not only black women, but all women.


	Princess Firyal of Jordan, Faye Wattleton, and Lesley Stahl

Hearing about Women’s Rights is tricky these days, at least for many men; and quite a few women too. The Feminist Movement created so many changes for women that their achievements, which were really great at the time, are now considered a matter of course. They are taken for granted. Helen Thomas talked about how she got into the newspaper business as a reporter in 1943 (and she’s still working!) because of the War (WWII) which took so many men away from the workforce. It was then, she said, that women first started doing jobs that men had previously done, proving a very important point. She then pointed out that we now have women on the Supreme Court, women who are and have been Secretary of State, and even a woman who is considered a very serious contender for the Presidency. Sherry Lansing, the first woman to head a movie studio – first 20th Century-Fox and then Paramount – was there yesterday. Suzanne de Passe referred to her because she was the trailblazer.

I know a lot of women who are very successful in their careers and their lives. Many of them wield real power in their fields. I often think of my mother who had to work to support us since my father was less than dependable and cooperative about that. She had a high school education. She read. She led a full life domestically with great interest in food, health, gardening, sewing, interior decorating. Her interests were severely limited by her economics, however, and she came from a generation where a woman of her (middle)class was embarrassed to have a partner who did not “provide.” So all her life she suffered from the idea that success was a man who “provided,” and therefore her failure.

Furthermore, the man had his frequent moments of verbal and physically threatening abuse. Another mark against her. Nevertheless she triumped in her own way (she was 82 when she died). Having worked her entire adult life, in her old age she was self-sufficient and self-supporting, working until the last year of her life, and loving working. Because she was free and independent. Nevertheless I’ve often thought that had my mother been born in my generation, or even better, the generation following me, she might very well not have bothered with the man who didn’t provide, but have gone on and pursued her interests professionally, and with pride. She certainly had the drive and the capacity for work and curiosity.

I tell this story because I often think of my mother when I attend these events for women’s quality of life. I am always reminded at an event such as this that, in truth, the life my mother had as an adult woman is very much like the life that a lot of young and not so young women still have to this day, despite the great strides that have been made in the Women’s Movement.

The difference my mother’s time and now, however, is, we know that the Possibilities can become realities. It has been demonstrated, as it was yesterday when they honored the four women at the luncheon. What has not been demonstrated is the ability of everybody, men and women, to provide roles and pathways for others to improve their lives and the lives of all of us.

This is very idealistic thinking on the face of it. Almost Pollyana. Except, when you measure how far we’ve come, and we consider that women are 50% of the population of the world, we can see the Possibility is now very much with us.

Sherry Lansing and Suzanne de Passe

Eleanor Smeal

Helen Thomas

Ann Dexter Jones

Lia Treibber and Boaz Mazor

Babs (the mom) and Suzanne de Passe

After the luncheon I went over to Sotheby’s to take some pictures of the exhibition of Ariane Dandois’ collection which will be open to the public for viewing tomorrow (Saturday). The auction itself will take place next Thursday and Friday.

Mme. Dandois, if you didn’t know, is one of the most famous antiquaires in Paris. However, after almost 35 years in business, she is emptying her three floors of shop on the Rue du Faubourg Saint Honore. For years she has exhibited in the great antiques fairs of the world. She is a very beautiful woman and known for her shrewdness and force in her business. She was also famously the longtime mistress of the late Elie de Rothschild, with whom she had a daughter Ondine de Rothschild who works with her mother in the business. The mother-daughter team, both striking women, are familiar faces in the international antiques world, and readers have often seen their pictures on the NYSD.

However, Mme. Dandois has decided to close up shop and her entire collection – more than 800 Lots – is being sold next week at Sotheby’s. She started her business in the early 1970s with about $50,000. I was told the estimate on the entire collection to be sold is somewhere between $12 - $15 million. Whatever its total, it is a tribute to the drive and business acumen of this woman who earned herself a formidable place in her profession. A woman who demonstrated the Possibility. And the Reality.

This Collection exhibition is also a first for Sotheby’s, and we can again credit that acumen of Mme. Dandois. She persuaded them to hire Juan Pablo Molyneaux (see NYSD HOUSE) to create an atmosphere for the collection.

Alistair Clarke, Ariane Dandois, Juan Pablo Molyneaux, and Ondine Rothchild; A rare directoire ormolu "pendule d'enfilade" signed, circa 1795. Est. $60,000 - $90,000.

It has taken over the entire 10th floor of Sotheby’s at York and 72nd, and it is like visiting a museum, or an environment that gives you a taste of the splendor of the periods and/or worlds of the items. In one grand room, Juan Pablo took Piranesi prints of 18th century Rome and blew them up on a lightweight fabric that covers the walls. It’s very dramatic and draws you in as if you’ve entered a new realm of grandeur. Another one of the rooms is a photo-version of a room in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

It’s the greatest exhibition of antiques ever seen at Sotheby’s. By which I mean, nothing has ever been displayed (and marketed) in this fashion. This gives you an idea of the woman who is divesting herself of her professional achievement after a long and successful career.

It opens Saturday. Don’t miss. Browse below for a small taste ...

And then, last night, before a little dinner that Jill Spalding had for Jacqueline de Ribes who has been visiting New York for a few weeks, I stopped by the Gala Preview of the Fall International Art and Antiques Fair at the 67th Street Armory, benefiting the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (for more about it, see Guest Diary). A Gala party. The place was jammed and very glam. This is a good show.

New Yorkers who love art and antiques, even if it’s just to see and dream, will have a fabulous time for the next week between visiting the Fair at the Armory and the Ariane Dandois Collection at Sotheby’s. Enjoy. Time for some dreaming and creative thinking.

By the time you read this JH and I will have left for JFK or will in fact be airborne to Abu Dhabi where we are guests at the country’s Festival of Thinkers. More about that soon.