Acknowledgements
3Exhibitions and catalogues of this scope require the generosity and assistance of numerous people. There are several individuals without whom this exhibition would have been nearly impossible. First and foremost among them are the members of Buckminster Fuller’s family. Our heartfelt thanks go to Allegra Fuller Snyder, Jaime Snyder, and Alexandra May for the support, time, and energy they lent to us from the very beginning of this project and the sage advice they offered at crucial moments. John Ferry, at the Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller, also deserves special thanks. We also are greatly indebted to the staff at the Special Collections Library at Stanford University who worked in association with the Whitney Museum of American Art to organize this exhibition. We would like to thank Michael Keller, Ida M. Green University Librarian, director of academic information resources; Assunta Pisani, associate university librarian for collections and services; and Catherine M. Tierney, associate university librarian for technical services, for their support and encouragement of this project. Roberto G. Trujillo, head, department of special collections, Frances and Charles Field Curator of Special Collections, and Hsiao-Yun Chu, assistant professor product design and development, San Francisco State University, and former assistant curator and projects coordinator, R. Buckminster Fuller Collection at Stanford, worked with us to develop the initial concept of the project and remained supportive and helpful throughout. Glynn Edwards, head of manuscripts processing, department of special collections; Mattie Taormina, head of public services and manuscripts processing librarian, department of special collections; Polly Armstrong, public services manager; and the rest of the staff at the Special Collections Library graciously facilitated access to more than 1,400 linear feet of Fuller’s archive. Our special thanks go to Maria Grandinette, Mary R. and Elizabeth K. Raymond Conservator, and acting head, preservation department, head, conservation treatment, Stanford University Libraries; Debra Fox, paper conservator; Rowan Geiger, objects conservator; Carolee Wheeler; and Sarah Newton. Their generosity, collegiality, and hours of tireless work made it possible for us to safely bring a substantial body of new material from the Fuller archive to light in both the catalogue and exhibition.
4 One of our primary goals in organizing this exhibition was to track down Fuller material held outside of Palo Alto and to show this material together with Stanford’s holdings. We are, therefore, extremely grateful to the other lenders to this exhibition. Among those who loaned works from their private collections are Chuck and Elizabeth Byrne, Alexandra and Samuel May, Shoji Sadao, and Kenneth Snelson. Our thanks go to the public institutions that opened their collections to us as well. Among those who helped facilitate loans from their institutions are Gerald Beasley and Janet Parks at Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University; Barry Bergdoll, Christian Larsen, Pamela Popeson, and Linda Roby at the Museum of Modern Art; Jenny Dixon and Larry Giacoletti at the Noguchi Museum; Alfred Pacquement, Olivier Cinqualbre, and Jean-Claude Boulet at the Musee National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou; Marc Pachter, James Barber, and Kristin Smith at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Pamela Hackbart-Dean, Randy Bixby, and Leah Broaddus at the Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Jim Cuno and Joseph Rosa at the Art Institute of Chicago; Betty Sue Flowers, Renee Gravois, and Michael MacDonald at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum; H. Fisk Johnson, chairman and CEO and chairman of the board, Kelly Semrau, Greg Anderegg, and Terri Boesel at S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. Fuller touched many people during his life and many of those friends, colleagues, and students have, in turn, shared valuable stories, advice, and information in meetings and in informal conversations. Among those, we would like to offer our special thanks to Shoji Sadao and Thomas Zung, partners with Fuller in his architecture firm. Shoji and Thomas met with us several times over the course of this project and offered invaluable advice on many aspects of the show. Also included in this group are Ruth Asawa, Albert Lanier, Carl Solway, Jack Masey, Jay Baldwin, Roger Stoller, Jonathan Marvel, Mary and Harold Cohen, Ken Snelson, Sue Cook, and Raz Ingrasci. We would also like to thank the staff at the R. Buckminster Fuller Institute, in particular Elizabeth Thompson, executive director. Elizabeth was unfailingly gracious and generous throughout the project. The several scholars who worked on Fuller’s massive archive before us deserve mention—Joachim Krausse, Claude Lichtenstein, Michael John Gorman, and Eva Diaz. They, without exception, willingly shared their thoughts and advice. Our colleague Christiane Paul, adjunct curator of new media arts at the Whitney, was extremely helpful to us in exploring some of the possibilities this show presented. Among the additional scholars, arts professionals, artists, and others who spoke with us about this project were Callie Angell, Irit Batsry, Chuck Byrne, Ila Cox, Jenny Dixon, Ronald Feldman, Howard Goldfarb, Marc Greuther, Fritz Haeg, Linda Henderson, Jasper Johns, Peggy Kaplan, Vincent Katz, Dodie Kazanjian, Michael Lobel, Josiah McElheny, Shamim Momin, Toshiko Mori, Felicity Scott, Frank Smiegel, Sarah Taggart, Nato Thompson, Fred TUrner, Anthony Vidler, Nick Weber, and Molly Wheeler. We are thankful to Antoine Picon, Elizabeth A. T. Smith, and Calvin Tomkins for their substantial contributions to the catalogue and the scholarship on Fuller. At Yale University Press, the co-publisher of this catalogue, we are grateful to Patricia Fidler, Kate Zanzucchi, Mary Mayer, and John Long. Jean Wilcox is to be commended for a thoughtful design that captures the spirit of Fuller without dispatching him to the shelves of history. Within the Museum our thanks for the catalogue go to the publications department, led by Rachel de W. Wixom, head of publications. A special thank you to Beth Huseman, editor, for her help at a crucial stage.
5 At the Whitney, we have had the pleasure and privilege to work with a fantastic team of colleagues on this exhibition. We are most appreciative for the support and enthusiasm that Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Director, and Donna De Salvo, chief curator and associate director for programs, have shown for this somewhat atypical project since its inception. There is no question that this project would not have come together without the exceptional quality and quantity of work produced by Jennie Goldstein. Every curatorial team should be lucky enough to have such a bright, talented, and warm-hearted curatorial assistant working with them. In addition to all of the curatorial support she offered, she compiled a smart, thoughtful contextual chronology and the most comprehensive bibliography on Fuller to date. Meg Calvert-Cason joined the team in the fall of 2007 and her exhibition experience and attention to detail were also essential to the realization of this project. Over the last two years, we have been assisted by several interns on various aspects of this project and they include Kim Conaty, Amara Craighill, Kristen France, Diana Karnin, as well as researcher Matico Josephson. In other departments at the Whitney, we would also like to thank Christy Putnam, associate director for exhibitions and collections management; Lynn Schatz, exhibitions coordinator, and Seth Fogelman, senior registrar. Christy helped in many ways to bring this complex exhibition to fruition. Lynn’s help with coordination of the exhibition and tour was invaluable, and Seth managed the enormously complicated logistics of the exhibition with great skill. Among the other staff at the museum who provided essential assistance in organizing, funding, and coordinating this catalogue, exhibition, and its accompanying programs are David Little, Margie Weinstein, and Kathryn Potts in education; Alexandra Wheeler, Hillary Strong, Ann Holcomb, Amy Roth, and Mary Anne Talotta in development; Beverly Parsons, Seth Fogelman, Kelley Loftus, Joshua Rosenblatt, and the art handlers; Mark Steigelman, Ray Vega, Jeffrey Bergstrom, and the audio visual team in exhibitions and collections management; Carol Mancusi-Ungaro and Matthew Skopek in conservation; Jeffrey Levine, Stephen Soba, and Rich Flood in marketing and communications; Bridget Elias, Anita Duquette, Nick Holmes, Emily Kreil, and Limor Tomer. At Harvard we would like to thank the following graduate students for their help: Michelle Chang, Emily Farnham, Patrick Hobgood, Iannis Kandyliaris, Ilias Papageorgiou, and, in particular, Brigid Boyle. Michael Meredith, associate professor of architecture, generously devoted his time and talents to the exhibition. We remain indebted to each of these individuals and institutions for their contributions to this catalogue, the exhibition, and its programming.
6 K. MICHAEL HAYS AND
DANA MILLER