At Menil Monday
World's most glamorous art lecturer Rosamond Bernier plans Houston visit
Rosamond BernierPhoto by Michele Mattei
Rosamond Bernier talking about Henry Moore in 1972 at the Metropolitan Museum ofArt.Photo via Rosamond Bernier
Bernier's 1948 Dior dress, chosen as the "Poster Girl" for the Dior exhibitionat the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute in 1996Photo via Rosamond Bernier
Some of My Lives
As a friend of Dominique de Menil, Henri Matisse, Coco Chanel, Aaron Copland and the Baroness Pauline de Rothschild, Rosamond Bernier has lived a fascinating life. Now, she is sharing some of those incredible memories in a new book, Some of My Lives, which was published earlier this month to coincide with her 95th birthday.
Dubbed "the world's most glamorous lecturer on art and high culture" by The New Yorker magazine, Bernier has filled theaters and auditoriums for four decades with her famous art talks, most notably in a long-standing annual engagement at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she often wore a couture evening gown. (She is a lifetime member of International Best-Dressed List.)
In a recent telephone interview, she said she is looking forward to coming to Houston, where she will talk about her book at The Menil Collection Monday night.
“I‘m very anxious to see The Menil Collection again,” she said. “I’ve been numerous times, but it’s always so beautiful and fascinating. I’ll be interested in seeing what’s going on in the arts, as well, particularly with what some of the younger artists are doing.”
Retiring from the lecture circuit in 2008 after the death of her husband, art critic John Russell, she began compiling anecdotes from her memorable life as a Vogue correspondent in postwar Paris, the founder of L’Oeil art magazine and the editor-at-large of House & Garden. Describing a menagerie of artist friends ranging from Pablo Picasso and Frida Kahlo to John Cage and Philip Johnson, Bernier’s memoirs read like a first-hand account of 20th-century art history.
“The de Menils went off to visit the Dalai Lama, leaving me, I suppose, to run the house,” she said. “Roberto Rossellini just showed up one day. I spoke rotten Italian and he spoke rotten English, so we both used French. We would meet for breakfast everyday and then he’d rush off to pursue one of his projects, while I’d prepare my lectures.”
Born in Philadelphia, Bernier spent much of her youth and young adulthood abroad, knowing the United States mainly from her brief years at Sarah Lawrence College. After the sudden and devastaing collapse of her marriage to Georges Bernier — with whom she started L’Oeil — she returned to the U.S. to give a series of lectures at Trinity College. Word of her entertaining and personalized accounts of modern art travelled quickly.
“The de Menils were longtime subscribers of my L’Oeil magazine,” she recalled. “When I came back to this country, Dominique asked me to give a lecture at Rice, where she was very involved at the time. I was still a bit nervous about lecturing in public and told her I didn’t have any slides prepared... she said her students would make them for me.”
An exploration of Picasso and Giacommetti, Bernier’s talk impressed the audience enough that Dominique invited her to give several more lectures that coming month. The slides made by those unsuspecting art students would become the core of a massive image catalog used hundreds of times during her years of speaking.
“During this time, Roberto Rossellini and I were fellow house guests. The de Menils went off to visit the Dalai Lama, leaving me, I suppose, to run the house,” she said. “Roberto just showed up one day. I spoke rotten Italian and he spoke rotten English, so we both used French. We would meet for breakfast everyday and then he’d rush off to pursue one of his projects, while I’d prepare my lectures.”
“I gave my first Rice talk and looked up to see Roberto,” she remembered, judging by his initial aloofness that he had little interest in her work. “I was surprised he understood any English, but he was very enthusiastic.”
After the talk, Rossellini approached Bernier and simply said, “You’ve got it.”
“It was immensely encouraging to have a professional say that to me. I had run an art review from 1955 until about 1970, but I’d never thought of seriously lecturing before.”
In the following years, Bernier travelled to Houston to give a number of talks for the de Menils, several of which covered her close friendship with Max Ernst.
Rosamond Bernier will speak at The Menil Collection Monday at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
