On Marian Giffiths

Marian loved art and young artists, making the SculptureCenter at her time a space particularly geared towards exhibiting young unknown artists. She gave many artists including myself what I consider my first professional opportunities. She curated us into exhibitions such as SculptureCenter Roosevelt Island and LIU plaza summer sculpture shows. These projects came with budgets and were often reviewed by publications such as The New York Times.

I considered Marian one of my best friends. We had a special friendship and I was proud to have an 85-year-old friend. At a gathering in her honor at Hannah Tierney’s Soho loft so many people arrived whose lives Marian had influenced. I realized many people had a special friendship with Marian.

I was very intrigued by her history. She was very reticent about her past, but I pried. Every so often she would offer up a fascinating upbringing. For instance, she spoke of being a small girl in Italy and her Italian nanny teaching her fascist songs. Much to the embarrassment of her intellectual parents, Marian was once brought out to sing at a gathering of their friends. As an adult in Berlin she liked eating Profiteroles. She lived in Dumbo in the 1950s!

But despite a fascinating history, Marian preferred to live in the present, seeing every museum show and going to all the movies as well. She took a drawing class. I begged to see her drawings, no such luck. The last time I actually saw her we met at The Drawing Center to see Alan Sarets gang drawings. Typical of our meetings, we would stand for long stretches in the middle of a gallery and talk.

But maybe for me the one most significant memory has to do with my own commitment to art. She told me many years ago, back when I was a younger artist, that there was something about me that she could tell I would always make art. I wondered then, as I still do, how she could tell. What intuitive powers did she have, or was it just years of observing artists.