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[Music]
Dana Miller: There's no photograph that can capture
the experience of standing in front of "The Rose."
David A. Ross: When you stand in front of this picture,
there's something uncanny about this picture--
about your experience of it.
Lisa Phillips: It was probably the most iconic work of that period.
Leah Levy: Jay Defeo took eight years of her life
in commitment to a vision she had
for creating this painting that has become "The Rose."
She started without knowing exactly where it was going
but she knew that she had some idea
and was willing to do whatever it took.
It was not exhibited until 1969.
Dana Miller: And after that,
it was brought to the San Francisco Art Institute.
Defeo had no place to store it in her own home.
She had no money to pay for a storage facility.
She didn't even have studio space, really--
a legitimate studio space at that time.
Leah: Jay's friend, Fred Martin,
who was then dean of the San Francisco Art Institute,
invited her to loan the work
and have it installed in a new conference room
in 1972--so this is then three years
after "The Rose" was installed at the Art Institute--
Jay, Bruce Connor, her friend, and other people began to notice
that there was some lack of care with the work,
and it was decided that it should be checked out.
Tony Rockwell, who was then at the San Francisco
Museum conservation lab, did a first report.
Dana: When this temporary conservation measure was put in place,
it completely obscured the front of the canvas.
And the idea was that they would stabilize the surface
and then bring the painting to a conservation lab
where further work would be done.
They covered the surface of the painting.
It was filled with additives and stabilizers and plaster.
Leah: The painting became too big, with the addition of the plaster,
to go out the way it came in.
Dana: And then after five years had passed
and that successive stage of conservation never took place,
the San Francisco Art Institute built a false wall
in front of the covered painting.
In the 1970s I was on the faculty at the Art Institute in San Francisco
and I taught a seminar in a small seminar room
and in that room there was always this kind of rumor
that behind the wall, in front of which I stood,
there was this legendary painting.
Dana: The work was, in essence, buried alive.
I mean, it was behind this false wall. I think because of that,
the mystery and the legend of "The Rose" grew.
It became something rumored but not known and not seen.
David: Fast-forward twenty years and I'm the Director of the Whitney, and
Lisa Phillips comes to me while she's in the process of organizing
the checklist and her kind of wish list for this
extraordinary exhibition she did on Beat culture.
She said, "You know, the great treasure for this show would be 'The Rose.'"
It certainly was her magnum opus and she spent so much
time, energy, love working on the piece.
David: Lisa and Leah and I had several conversations
about what it would mean to try to rescue and revive "The Rose,"
and making serious acquisitions of serious works
was exactly what we were supposed to be doing--and we did that
fairly frequently--but we had never had to acquire
a work that couldn't be seen
and that existed, essentially, as a rumor.
Lisa: Everybody understood that it was important
and that maybe this was the opportunity to, in fact,
save this great work of art.
Leah: In early June 1995, knowing that the "Beat culture and the New America" show
was to open in New York at the Whitney in November,
the wall came down and the conservation on the work began.
David: Everybody thought this was a great idea: let's try to
revive, rescue, restore "The Rose."
So we proceeded and, of course, the story of its rescue--
getting it out of the wall and then the amazing story of these brilliant
scientists--really, no other word would suffice.
So they X-rayed it and found where there were gaps
with air, and they filled it with this space-age plastic of some kind
by injecting it and stabilizing it in all sorts of ways.
A new stretcher was made--again, using the most modern technology--
to create a stretcher frame that would accommodate essentially a ton of paint.
Dana: It really was a risk. Not many museum directors and curators
would necessarily choose to spend
this many months and this much money
working on a piece that might not exist
when they removed the plaster.
And so they just took this enormous leap of faith
and, luckily, it paid off. And I feel that
the Whitney Museum, all of New York,
American Art History, and me, personally--
we benefited from that risk ever since.
At the time that she died, she had
a lot of optimism that "The Rose"
would finally find a good home.
I mean, it was still covered with plaster and a false wall
and it was off view and had been for many years,
but I think she believed that eventually it would find a home.
Leah: I had come from a meeting where I had discussed
the possibility of an interest in conservation
and I was telling her about it and I could see
that she was tired and not feeling well
and I remember saying to her, "Let's talk about this tomorrow."
She said, "Oh no, I'm listening to every word you're saying,
but right above your head I see this scenario,"
and I said, "What's that, Jay?," and she said,
"I'm in another life, and I'm walking in a museum
and I come upon "The Rose"
and I see someone looking at it,
and I walk up to them and nudge them and say, 'I did that.'"
She knew this would happen.
That takes some of the bitter out of the bittersweet
of having all of this success when she didn't literally see it.
She told me she saw it.