The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

GRAHAM GUSTO


Photographer Ellen Graham greeted guests Dominick Dunne, Rex Reed, Tommy Tune, Georgette Mosbacher, and others at a book party at Bergdorf Goodman. Meanwhile, Nan Kempner was busily preparing a post-party dinner.


They were celebrating Ms. Graham’s photography book “The Bad & The Beautiful” (Harry N. Abrams), which features an introduction by Tiffany & Co. design director John Loring.


The book contains over 150 images of celebrities as well as the less than famous – all culled from her work, which has appeared in such magazines as W, Time, and Newsweek.


Ms. Graham, who studied at Parsons School of Design, told the Knickerbocker that her mother’s strong sense of style influenced her own. They went together to Germany in 1961 to see if her Berlin home had been destroyed during the war. It had. At the time Ms. Graham bought a Leica, but today she opts for a Nikon – sans tripod.


Early on, Ms. Graham hoped to go into theatrical costume design. That all changed with a 1964 trip to Monte Carlo. A publication called Men’s Bazaar asked her to hunt down the 100 most handsome men in the world. Although the project ultimately was killed, it turned her on to a career behind the lens – and away from backstage.


Ms. Graham said that she prefers to photograph her subjects at their homes rather than in a studio, because such an environment relects the sitters’ characters.


***


MUSICAL MATTERS


Friends and colleagues gathered on the Upper West Side to celebrate the publication of “The King & I: The Uncensored Tale of Luciano Pavarotti’s Rise to Fame By His Manager, Friend, and Sometime Adversary” (Doubleday). Anne Midgette and Mr. Pavaratti’s former publicist, Herbert Breslin, coauthored the book. The party was hosted by Stephen and Cynthia Rubin.


At the party, Mr. Rubin handed out two large copies of a photo of himself walking in New York in 1966 or 1967 with Mr. Breslin, soprano Renata Tebaldi, Ms. Tebaldi’s maid, and a poodle.


Among those in attendance were Jeremy Eichler and Anthony Tommasini, who attended a conference at Columbia University on the state of classical music criticism this past weekend.


Seen were Mr. Pavaratti’s secretary from 1984 to 1989, Giovanna Cavaliere; sculptor Robin Kennedy; philosopher William Earle, who edits the journal “The Philosophical Forum,” published by Blackwell, and the chairman of the Municipal Art Society Streetscape Committee, Andrew Manshel, who recently appeared on a panel on outdoor advertising.


As opera has drama, so does technology. The book’s acknowledgement page mentions the company DriveSavers, which retrieved all the data from a laptop computer that was destroyed in a house fire. Without the company’s services, there may not have been a book at all.


***


HIGH(BROW) SOCIETY


New Nobel laureate Richard Axel and 2003 laureates Roderick MacKinnon and Robert Engle joined the Swedish consul general, the Hon. Kjell Anneling, and the Royal Norwegian consul general, the Hon. Liv M0rch Finborud, at the newly inscribed Nobel monument. The sculpture is located in Theodore Roosevelt Park on the Upper West Side, just west of the American Museum of Natural History. Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe presided and fourth-graders from nearby Rodeph Sholom School sang uplifting songs.


Dr. Axel won the Nobel prize for his research of the olfactory sense. A native New Yorker, he graduated from Stuyvesant High School, thus joining 25 other graduates of this city’s pubic schools who have won Nobel Prizes. Since it began in 1901, 284 Americans have received the prize.


Among those in attendance were and Pal Svensson, an artist whose work includes monumental stone sculptures in Stockholm and Copenhagen.


Unveiled last year in Theodore Roosevelt Park, the Nobel monument was first proposed by the consulate general of Sweden in New York and by American Nobel laureates. The New York City Art Commission and Landmarks Preservation Commission later approved the monument, which was designed by Sivert Lindblom, who also designed the Holocaust Monument in Stockholm.


NYCivic founder Henry Stern, who served 15 years as parks commissioner, told the Knickerbocker of the long struggle to obtain approval for the monument from city agencies and community boards. One Westsider had objected to the statue because Alfred Nobel had invented dynamite. Another had asked what Nobel had ever done for the West Side.


Three successive Swedish consuls general, starting with Hon. Dag Sebastian Ahlander, who proposed the project, and continued by Hon. Olle Wastberg, worked to make the monument a reality. “We spent five years in the wilderness resolving design, location, and construction issues, but as in the Old Testament, Adrian was the Joshua who brought the statue into the Promised Land,” he said.


***


BACK TO BROWNING


Wellesley College special collections librarian Marianna Oller spoke before the New York Browning Society.


In her talk, the Bulgarian-born Ms. Oller showed slides of various books, manuscripts, and other materials in the Wellesley collection, including a crystal locket from Venice 1889 containing 2 locks of Robert Browning’s hair.


Among those in the audience were the vice president of the New York Browning Society, Louise Collins, and the society’s director-at-large, Stephen Downey, whose wife, K.T. Sullivan, will perform in “Vienna to Weimar” at the Jermyn Street Theater in London in December.


Upcoming events for the Browning Society include dramatic readings of poems by Washington Irving High School students on December 8; a special New York Public Library tour of the Browning Collection (which includes Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s slippers) February 9; Vincent Petronella of the Boston Browning Society, who will speak on “Robert Browning’s Boston Spiritualist: Mr. Sludge, the Medium” on March 9; Evelyn Witkin will speak on “Raising Pen Browning: The Poets as Parents” on April 13; and an annual luncheon on May 11 entitled “Why Browning?”


The New York Sun

© 2025 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use