The Met’s Corporate Benefit Highlights the Art of the Chat

Idle chitchat at cocktail parties rises to a higher level when the gathering is located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the guests are the corporate executives who support the museum.

At the museum’s Corporate Benefit Wednesday, a Warhol Mao hanging on the wall prompted the president of Hearst Magazines, Cathleen Black, one of the evening’s honorees, to discuss her recent trip to China.

“The market for modern Chinese art is booming,” Ms. Black said. “We went to a gallery, ShanghArt, in Shanghai, which had a lot of Pop art. It was located in a district that looked like SoHo.”

Ms. Black’s trip was mainly for business; Hearst publishes seven of its magazines in China, including Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, and Good Housekeeping — but not House Beautiful.

“You really do wonder about publishing a shelter there,” Ms. Black said. “I didn’t see homes, but they’re very modern.”

Some of the guests stayed on domestic topics. The founder of the wealth management firm Alexandra & James, Alexandra Lebenthal, relayed that her son Ben, who is 13, will be taking a three-week course in existentialism this summer.

The chairwoman of the New York City Opera, Susan Baker, spoke of the preparations she is making for a party at her home in the Berkshires for students at Tanglewood who attend the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, her husband’s alma mater.

The art on the walls was easy conversation fodder. The head of client relationship management at Lehman Brothers, Stephen Lessing, said, “There are a couple I wouldn’t mind taking home.”

Bloomberg Financial co-workers Dan Witham and Tom O’Connor said they were standing in front of their favorite work in the gallery, a portrait by Chuck Close.

“Look at the time it takes to make this picture,” Mr. O’Connor said, pointing to the individual squares of color that come together to compose the image. “Close is one of the greatest American artists of our time.”

Most guests said they make it to the museum a few times a year. One notable exception is an employee of CB Richard Ellis, Lauren Crowley, who volunteers at the museum a couple of weekends a month.

The Corporate Benefit didn’t pull in the celebrities, socialites, and couture gowns associated with the museum’s other fund-raising events, but that was just fine with this crowd.

“This is a wonderful dinner because it’s small. It’s not a gala, it’s more a gathering of the business world,” Ms. Black said. “Lots of companies have been supporting the museum for decades.”

The chairman and chief executive of CIT, Jeffrey Peek, who is also the husband of New York Sun columnist Liz Peek, was even more enthusiastic than his fellow honoree, Ms. Black.

“For me and for CIT, it was a magical evening. Certainly, the genius represented by the Met is something we all need to support,” he said.

agordon@nysun.com