Out & About
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The birds are back at the New-York Historical Society. The repository of American history on Central Park West has reinstalled an exhibit of watercolors by John James Audubon made famous by his book “The Birds of America.” Here again – with recorded sounds by Charlie Morrow to put them as close as one’s ear – are the wood duck, the ivory-billed woodpecker, and the rubythroated hummingbird.
The opening reception for the exhibit last week honored the directors of the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, which funded the exhibit, Dan Lufkin, Edmund Duffy, Jack Nash, and Norman Peck.The foundation was established by hotelier and real estate developer Peter Jay Sharp, who died of melanoma in 1991 at the age of 61. Sharp, a Princeton graduate who worked on oil rigs and served in the Navy before entering the family business of real estate and hotels (he owned the Carlyle), was a board member of Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Fund for Better Subway Stations, and a chairman of New York City Opera. His mother, Evelyn Sharp, and father, Jesse Sharp, built the Stanhope. Together, mother and son donated the money to build the Sharp Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sharp’s legacy to New York is consistent and abundant funding of culture and academic scholarship, for both short-term projects such as exhibitions and grander ideas such as buildings, endowments, and capacity building. With assets of more than $200 million, the foundation has distributed grants to hundreds of nonprofits including Brooklyn Academy of Music, Alvin Ailey, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Miller Theatre at Columbia University. Evelyn founded her own foundation in 1952, which her daughter, Mary Sharp Cronson, runs today.
Ms. Cronson was among the guests at the New-York Historical Society reception. She now runs the Works & Process series of music, theater, and dance performances at the Guggenheim Museum. Also attending were the president of the New-York Historical Society, Louise Mirrer; Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, who is a former president of the society; the president of the National Audubon Society, John Flicker; the natural history art dealer Joel Oppenheimer, who has galleries in Chicago and Charleston, S.C.; author Morrison Heckscher, who has written books on American rococo and the Newport cabinetmaker John Townsend; Donna Schwartz, who with her husband Marvin provided the funding to restore the reservoir fence in Central Park; and Mr. Lufkin’s wife, Cynthia.The Lufkins will be serving as the chairmen of Juilliard’s 100th anniversary gala on April 3, which features a performance at Lincoln Center with Renee Fleming, Emanuel Ax, John Williams, and Itzhak Perlman, to be broadcast live on PBS.
