Art: Garden Party at the National

• Share

Six months ago, Washington's National Gallery of Art faced its approaching 25th birthday with no idea of how to celebrate it. Almost as a matter of reflex, Director John Walker turned to the gallery's president, Paul Mellon. Nothing could be more natural. He is the son of Andrew Mellon, many-time Secretary of the Treasury, whose personal fortune built the gallery. In his own right, Paul Mellon, along with his wife and his sister, Mrs. Ailsa Mellon Bruce (first wife of U.S. Ambassador David K. E. Bruce), is a collector of the first order.

"Since my father founded the gallery, naturally I have a personal interest in it," Paul Mellon said. The Mellons decided that it was up to them to fete the occasion, and soon they were clearing out their homes in New York, Washington, Cape Cod and Virginia to fill twelve rooms in the National Gallery with 246 art works. No other U.S. family could have brought out from private stock such a handsome salute, ranging over 100 years of French painting from a Corot to a Bonnard. As they went on view last week, Mellon was delighted: "I haven't seen all the pieces together this way," he said. "I think they help make a nice birthday party."

Handsome Tributes. The loan show was packed with surprises. Paul Mellon has been known publicly as a collector of 18th and 19th century British painting (TIME, July 5, 1963). Since his mother was English and he loved riding to hounds, it was a taste that came naturally. In fact, his first purchase at the age of 29 was a picture of a horse named Pumpkin by the English proto-romantic artist George Stubbs. Then, after his marriage in 1948 to Rachel Lambert (whom he calls "Bunny"), he began exchanging such horsy enthusiasms for the vivacious vegetation of the French impressionist painters across the Channel. "Like the name of the style," he explains, "there is an ever-fresh impression of seeing."

Not only is Bunny Mellon an enthusiastic Francophile, but she is also an ardent gardener. Last week Interior Secretary Udall gave her a special award for her work as the designer of the Kennedy Rose Garden at the White House. The two enthusiasms soon combined, led the Mellons to collect some of the impressionists' and postimpressionists' most handsome tributes to their own gardens, four of which are reproduced in the accompanying color pages.