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Early leadership

The de Menils brought Jerry MacAgy,

Jermayne MacAgy was an exhibit designer, museum director and art professor who became director of the Contemporary Arts Museum in 1955. During her four-year tenure she organized 29 exhibitions, many of them considered unusual at that time.
and she was one fantastic person. Her personality was so dynamic. You were just attracted to it by the force of her—it was such a good kind of thing. It wasn’t dominating or manipulative, or it never struck me that way, certainly. I’ve never heard anything like that about her. But she was a real, vital force for things happening—things of the mind, which was so exciting. Then Jim
James Johnson Sweeney, noted art critic and former Guggenheim director, was named Museum of Fine Arts director in 1961, where he served for six years.
and Laura Sweeney came. That was tremendous. He did fabulous things while he was here. They became really good friends of ours, as with Jerry MacAgy. It was real personal for us, because Howard was doing a lot of work for Schlumberger for the de Menils. It was about not having narrow boundaries. The boundaries were endless so the sky was the limit for what you could do: extending, trying, and building on one’s development.

Gertrude and Howard Barnstone at Totems Not Taboo opening, 1959. Photo by Eve Arnold. Magnum. Courtesy of Gertrude Barnstone.

Other pursuits

In the 60s I got on the school board—the Houston school board—and it was extremely political, extremely dramatic. It was quite an experience. In ’64 I ran, and then I didn’t get off until 1970. I found that during that time I couldn’t keep up with the art thing in any form…the focus changed. Then in 1970 I did other things—TV and whatnot. Channel 2 (KPRC-TV) kindly gave me a job doing community relations…because I was divorced by then, and had three little children. After a few months they asked if I would do a non-commercial children’s program. Those were the days of Sesame Street and the realization that—wow!—you could do something worthwhile. The FCC was breathing down the necks of commercial stations to do this, so they wanted me to work it up. Since I’d been on the school board they figured I had some feel for this thing about kids. I did that for a few years, and they gave me total carte blanche, which was wonderful.

The show was called Sundown’s Treehouse, and it was participatory…about eight kids with total ethnic diversity. They were all under ten, but the children ran the show. I would come up with an outline of what the show was going to be, and we’d meet and we’d talk about it and we’d start doing some dialogue back and forth, and then two days later—it was the taping, and kids just went! I tried to include a lot of participatory things like putting a piece of plastic in front of the camera and a kid with a brush would draw on it, so on the screen all you’d see is a brush and these lines and things. I loved doing that program.

The whole television thing lasted a few years, then the Women’s Caucus for Art became important. I’d been so active politically, and discrimination was just everywhere. This was certainly something that needed to be worked on, so I was very active in that…helped get that going. And I was active here and there nationally for a few years, as well as doing my own work. Then you realize, okay, I’ve done that, I’ve got to get back to what is really me, and put all my energy and focus on that. So I did.

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Source:  OpenStax, Houston reflections: art in the city, 1950s, 60s and 70s. OpenStax CNX. May 06, 2008 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10526/1.2
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