美国国家公共电台 NPR How A Work Of Art Makes It Onto The Wall Of The White House

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: 

On his first day on the job, President Trump¹ made some changes to the Oval Office. He installed gold drapes and moved some statues. First families do have some leeway to make changes to the White House, including changes throughout the house to the art on the walls. NPR's Elizabeth Blair looks at how art gets to the most powerful address in the world.

ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE²: A gallery in New York, a curator in Washington, a wealthy couple from Texas - it can take many hands for just one work of art to make it into the White House. Here's an example. The Obamas had a large painting by Susan Rothenberg hanging in what's called the Treaty Room. Mark Rosenthal has admired it since the mid-'70s.

MARK ROSENTHAL: It's an unbelievably energetic, beautiful sort of thing in which a black horse, whose body is only somewhat defined, is seen running across a kind of crimson³ field.

BLAIR: When Rosenthal became a curator at the National Gallery of Art 20 years later, he still remembered the painting and set out to acquire it. For that, he needed money. So he convinced Texas donors⁴ Nancy and Perry Bass⁵, whose money came from the oil industry, to purchase it for the museum.

ROSENTHAL: The other thing that was notable about them was that they were revered⁶ conservationists.

BLAIR: Rosenthal thought the picture of the horse might speak to them. It did, and the painting entered the National Gallery's collection. Jump ahead to 2009 when the Obamas moved into the White House. The National Gallery's current staff preferred not to be interviewed, but Rosenthal says, typically, the new first family sends someone there and to other museums to pick out art for their private living quarters.

ROSENTHAL: And it might be a friend. It might be a decorator. It might be anybody. It's very much a kid in a candy store.

BLAIR: In the case of the Rothenberg horse painting, that lucky kid was the Obamas' decorator. But when it comes to public areas in the White House, the rules are different.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "A TOUR OF THE WHITE HOUSE WITH MRS. JOHN F. KENNEDY")

CHARLES COLLINGWOOD: Well, now, can you make these changes according to your own personal tastes and desires?

JACQUELINE KENNEDY: Well, no. I have a committee which has museum experts and government people and private citizens on it.

BLAIR: In the early 1960s, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy helped bring some order to the process of how art should enter the White House and be paid for. For decades, it was pretty haphazard⁷, says art historian Bill Kloss.

BILL KLOSS: In the 19th century, in particular, one of the ways that Congress had to express their unhappiness with a particular administration incoming was to give them little or no funding for new furniture or new rugs or anything that was needed. So on more than one occasion, they held a big sale on the White House lawn in front and sold what they could to raise funds to buy new furnishings.

BLAIR: Today, those funds come from a nonprofit that raises money from private donations and merchandise.

BETTY MONKMAN: Through the sale of their books and their publications and their Christmas ornaments⁸ and so forth⁹.

BLAIR: Betty Monkman is a former White House curator. She started out at the White House in 1967, a few years after President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order establishing the curator position. She says the goal is to collect a work by and about Americans, and there were gaps in the collection.

MONKMAN: We only had copies of a lot of 19th-century paintings, so we always were on the lookout¹⁰ for life portraits of, for instance, John Adams or someone - or Abigail Adams, which we still have not acquired because there are so few of them out there - but also, then, to have paintings that represented certain regions of the country.

BLAIR: A New Mexico gap, for example, was filled in during the Clinton administration with a painting by Georgia O'Keeffe. First ladies Laura Bush and Michelle Obama also modernized¹¹ the collection. Obama acquired a vibrant¹² abstract work by the late Alma Thomas, the first African-American woman in the permanent collection. Bush acquired a painting by the African-American artist Jacob Lawrence for the White House Green Room. In 2008, she told C-SPAN the White House should showcase American traditions of the past but also stay relevant.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO, "WHITE HOUSE TOUR WITH LAURA BUSH")

LAURA BUSH: The White House goes on, and history continues to be made here. And so I also want the White House to reflect more modern presidents and more modern times.

BLAIR: It's too soon to say what impact Mr. and Mrs. Trump will have on the White House art collection, but former curator Mark Rosenthal says that these decisions are worth watching.

ROSENTHAL: What a person or family chooses to live with is incredibly telling about their openness to visual experiences. One ought to be expanding one's horizons all the time.

BLAIR: The White House is actually an accredited¹³ museum with a curatorial staff and a committee dedicated¹⁴ to its preservation¹⁵. So if Mr. and Mrs. Trump do decide to add to its collection, they'll have plenty of help.

Elizabeth Blair, NPR News, Washington.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 crimson   

n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色

参考例句：

• She went crimson with embarrassment.她羞得满脸通红。
• Maple leaves have turned crimson.枫叶已经红了。

4 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 bass   

n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴

参考例句：

• He answered my question in a surprisingly deep bass.他用一种低得出奇的声音回答我的问题。
• The bass was to give a concert in the park.那位男低音歌唱家将在公园中举行音乐会。

6 revered   

v.崇敬，尊崇，敬畏( revere的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• A number of institutions revered and respected in earlier times have become Aunt Sally for the present generation. 一些早年受到尊崇的惯例，现在已经成了这代人嘲弄的对象了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Chinese revered corn as a gift from heaven. 中国人将谷物奉为上天的恩赐。 来自辞典例句

7 haphazard   

adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的

参考例句：

• The town grew in a haphazard way.这城镇无计划地随意发展。
• He regrerted his haphazard remarks.他悔不该随口说出那些评论话。

8 ornaments   

n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The shelves were chock-a-block with ornaments. 架子上堆满了装饰品。
• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments. 一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

10 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

11 modernized   

使现代化，使适应现代需要( modernize的过去式和过去分词 )； 现代化，使用现代方法

参考例句：

• By 1985 the entire railway network will have been modernized. 等到1985年整个铁路网就实现现代化了。
• He set about rebuilding France, and made it into a brilliant-looking modernized imperialism. 他试图重建法国，使它成为一项表面华丽的现代化帝业。

12 vibrant   

adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的

参考例句：

• He always uses vibrant colours in his paintings. 他在画中总是使用鲜明的色彩。
• She gave a vibrant performance in the leading role in the school play.她在学校表演中生气盎然地扮演了主角。

13 accredited   

adj.可接受的；可信任的；公认的；质量合格的v.相信( accredit的过去式和过去分词 )；委托；委任；把…归结于

参考例句：

• The discovery of distillation is usually accredited to the Arabs of the 11th century. 通常认为，蒸馏法是阿拉伯人在11世纪发明的。
• Only accredited journalists were allowed entry. 只有正式认可的记者才获准入内。

14 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

15 preservation   

n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持

参考例句：

• The police are responsible for the preservation of law and order.警察负责维持法律与秩序。
• The picture is in an excellent state of preservation.这幅画保存得极为完好。