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Remembrances of Bob Kaufmann
January 28, 2010
Jeff Sholeen
Good evening. I am Jeff Sholeen, President of the Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America and am glad to see all of you here tonight at this memorial service for Bob Kaufmann. Bob was an integral part of the society from it’s inception in the 1960s and served on its board for many years since that time. It was only natural that our board immediately decided to sponsor this service upon learning of his passing. We will have 4 speakers and then a reception afterwards in the two rooms at the entry of the church – the larger one upstairs and the smaller parlor on this level. The Chapter would also like to thank the New Church for providing their sanctuary on short notice and for all their assistance.
Tonight’s speakers will be:
With that I’ll introduce Stephen.
Stephen Van Dyk
Memories of Bob Kaufmann
I have many fond memories of my dear friend and colleague Bob Kaufmann who I had the honor to know for more than twenty years. I don’t actually remember when I first met Bob – more than likely at some librarian reception and through mutual friends here in the city. Before that meeting, however, I learned about him when I became head of the library at the Cooper- Hewitt Museum nearly twenty two ago. Bob had been at the Cooper-Hewitt as head librarian several years before. It was in my first weeks at CHM that I started to review file drawers of reports, documents & letters both written by and to Bob. Of course the letters were the most interesting – how much one learns about someone by reading their mail! Though seemingly classed as business correspondence – the letters were pure Bob Kaufmann – filled with information interlaced with warmth and a dash of southern charm. I also inherited a substantial library resource that for the most part he had compiled while at Cooper-Hewitt that covered most areas of the decorative arts – it demonstrated a comprehensive understanding of genre – a testament that he was a collection building librarian. Yes all of the key works in the field were there but interestingly –there was also a somewhat off-beat collection of guides, pamphlets, and magazine articles that included paint color wheels –brochures from lesser known Italian villas – and articles on such topics on how to properly apply grass-cloth to your walls. Colleagues – Edie MacGuire, Jackie Rae, Sheila Smith, Elaine Dee, Dorothy Globus, Milton Sonday –Lucy Commoner - all spoke fondly of Bob’s time at the “Coop”.
When Bob Kaufmann and I finally met, we found that we had a lot in common. We talked at great length about our travels – I spoke about my adventures in Greece, Sicily and Turkey and Bob about his trips to Italy. His work in Florence as part of flood relief operations I gather was one of the highlights of his life. Bob spoke with great passion about his discovery of the great works of the Italian Renaissance as well as people and food of Italy – truly one of the great loves of his life.
Though we were both art librarians, we rarely spoke about issues of that profession –at times we would confer on how to answer that very interesting, unusual or tough reference question. Each learning from each other. We talked more about art world – exhibitions – art historical scholarship and of course about books. Bob could spend hours exploring the numerous book stores throughout the city – a true bibliophile.
Both Bob and I liked experiencing and learning about art & architecture world – I more interested in modern and contemporary subjects – he more passionate about the earlier Renaissance & Baroque. We both, however, were interested in that in-between period –the 19 th or Victorian period. Bob first introduced me to the Victorian Society – where we attended loads of lectures and toured some of the great 19 th century buildings of that period. He served for many years on the VSA Metropolitan board.
Bob and I also talked a lot about this city that he loved so much. He was a great urban explorer discovering the unique, hidden by-ways, the ethnic and rich resource on the streets of New York. Though I never attended his course on living cheaply here in the Big Apple – I was introduced by Bob to local hardware stores that had just what I needed, best places to get spices, the restaurant downtown that had the best eggplant parmigiana, where free concerts and theater could be found, and a guy who did a good job of cutting hair for under $10. Bob contended that a one bedroom could be found in Manhattan for under $1000 a month – though I wasn’t able find such a deal.
But what I loved most about my dear friend Bob was that he was a passionate and dedicated collector. Yes – he and I would on occasion do our yard sale and antique shop crawling –landing the ultimate deal on the 19 th century piece that was inexpensive and we thought that we could not live without. And yes, Bob would regale me with tales of treasures collected from sidewalks around the city or perhaps the result of a successful dumpster dive. A beautiful Kimbel & Cabus dining room set dating from the 1870s was one of his street finds – a chair from that set that was recently obtained by CHM in his honor.
I believe – above all of this – was Bob’s love and passion for people – he was a great collector of sorts of those that he encountered in his life. Bob and I took several trips – he would take time to look up someone he knew and had kept in touch with. After a panel at an Art Librarian’s Conference that Bob and I had moderated in Los Angeles sometime in the 1990s– we had dinner with the architect in residence at the State Capitol in Sacramento -amazingly someone Bob had helped with reference question some thirty years prior and with whom he had stayed in touch. Bob spoke at great length of people on our road trips to Long Island, Newport, Albany, Mobile, New Orleans, Montgomery – people from his family, childhood, school, college, the Birmingham Public Library, Columbia, Yale, the Met, at Sage, -all who were just Sara Lou, Judy, Kathy, Tom, Jack, Evelyn, Caroline, Rocky, Ed, - and soon I got to know of some of these names –others will remain a mystery–but more importantly I got to know that all of them –comprised a wonderful patchwork quilt of Bob’s life – he the passionate friend that kept in touch – that linked us all somehow into his life.
I miss my dear friend – the regular dinners at the Key West Diner on Broadway and 94 th Street - but like many of you I take away many fond memories of someone who took the time to stay in touch and called us his friend.
Sheila Smith
I met Bob when he came to work as librarian at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in the early 1970’s. It was a heady time as we were putting a museum together from the collections of the Cooper Union. Because there was very little staff, there were many volunteers who were happy to help this charming Southern gentleman from Birmingham, Alabama.
We had a crash course in library work, specifically the picture archives which consisted of thousands of images covering every aspect of the decorative arts.
Bob was always patient and considerate with us and had a unique way with words, as you all know. Lunches were jolly gatherings, with much talk of music, art, politics, and of course, food, which was dear to his heart. We heard about southern cooking. Most notable was the recipe for gelatin salad, laced with tiny marshmallows.
Bob and I became very good friends. Very different backgrounds, but kind of kindred spirits for some reason. My husband, children and grandchildren were very fond of him. On Christmas Eve we always had a large gathering and Bob would arrive with an enormous platter of chocolate roullage “a dessert to die for.” We used to try to get him to visit us when we went to the beach in the summer, but he always turned us down because he hated the sand. He said, “the air was too thin.” He liked to see the air that he breathed! It turns out he was a true New Yorker.
I was cleaning out my mother’s apartment after she passed way and Bob came over to help. I had put away a bunch of things that I wanted to get rid of, and Bob, being the great hunter-gatherer of second-hand objects, went home with a straw plantation hat, an over-the-top bowl covered in flowers and rampaging cupids. And, a fur cape from the 1960’s which was going to a street fair to benefit SAGE, the organization that helps elderly gay men which he was involved with. I asked Bob later what had happened to the fur cape, and he said that a roller-blading gentleman had bought it and skated off with it flying over his shoulder. I heard my mother turning over in her grave.
Bob, of course, got me interested in everything Victorian which wasn’t difficult for him to do. The time was ripe. Having grown up with chintzes and colonial-revival furniture, I was ready for a change. I joined the Victorian Society in l976 and Bob and I were on the board together several times over the years. Many lectures, Many tours. And many good times drinking warm wine at receptions, in wonderful spaces of mind-boggling revivals of the 19th Century.
Bob started working at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the early 1980’s. I followed him a year later. New devoted volunteers and more jolly lunches. This scenario was repeated ten years later when Bob became the librarian at the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department, and Reference Librarian in Watson. I went to the American Wing. He had the ability to gather people around him, and of course, the lunches continued. He was kind of a pied piper of volunteers.
Bob was an extraordinarily kind man, and was always there when you needed him. He really loved people and had enormous enthusiasm for what interested him. He worked for as long as he could, even when he became very ill. We never heard him complain … and he was in pain. It mostly made him mad because it kept him from doing all the things he still wanted to do.
For those of us who worked for Bob over the years, he gave us confidence that we were up to the task at hand. And for that, we were very grateful. The working days were also laced with humor, and for that, we were also very grateful.
Bob used to greet me with the expression, “Hail Blithe Spirit,” which was a real pick-me-up.
But of course, he was the blithe spirit!
Frank Matero
Remembering Bob Kaufmann
How does one remember, or better yet celebrate a life? Even more so in a few minutes, in a paragraph, in an evening?
At its truest, it is a random assortment of memories, feelings, associations we conjure up at the thought of it.
Bob Kaufmann was my friend and esteemed colleague. I always looked forward to our meeting, esp those long lunches at the Met where he was never at a loss for words on any subject , usually his choice. That slow measured southern voice that made anything he said sound wise and comforting, like our favorite elementary school teacher. Bob had the gift of knowing who he was, certainly for as long as I knew him. He was kind and gentle in an old school way while at the same time equally capable of demonstrating boyish enthusiasm over the slightest thing of importance to him-wallpaper, soufflé, Wagner, a handsome face. We met in the early 80s in London during the Victorian Society Summer school where we got into our fair share of mischief, largely under the encouraging eye and assistance of Sybil Groff.
Dear Bob, you will be missed, but better yet, you will be remembered. For you were a memorable old soul who inspired many in all those seemingly small ways that usually go unnoticed until they must be remembered. I am glad to have counted you as my friend and my life will forever be the richer for knowing you. Godspeed.
Morrison Heckscher
I first met Bob Kaufman forty-six years ago. As far as I am concerned, that first meeting really said it all, showed the man’s true colors. So, please bear with me while I try to reconstruct that long-ago scene.
It was the first week of term, September 1964, and I was just beginning my graduate studies in Art History at Columbia. I had arrived in New York about midnight Sunday at Penn Station. The demolition had begun, and tears came to my eyes. How could the city allow such a travesty? Maybe New York wasn’t for me. After a brief meeting the next day with The Great Man (Rudolf Wittkower) I was on my own. I knew nobody and during registration and course selection my lack of an art history background was made glaringly apparent. Maybe art history wasn’t for me either.
But there was a comforting, friendly, and uncompetitive air about the slightly scruffy Fine Arts Library on the eighth floor of Schermerhorn Hall, where one naturally gravitated after class. In retrospect, I realized it was all because of the librarian – a peripatetic figure, always on the move yet never rushed, signing out or reshelving books, dispensing wisdom and gossip, and making the uncertain outsider feel absolutely at home. This was a man entirely at peace with himself, a man interested in everything and everybody, a man of an altogether generous spirit. This was Bob Kaufman, who must have helped countless newcomers like me adjust to the mysteries of the fine arts and New York City. I was fortunate that, after Columbia and the Cooper-Hewitt, Bob came to the Met where, for many years, a few kindred spirits and I often shared morning coffee with him and savored his bemused and civilized take on life.
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