Stanley Bard - This Ain't no Holiday Inn: Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel 1980-1995 - page 159

create. He's a kind of genius himself. He got along very well with the artists be-
cause they're also mad geniuses.
JOHN ZINNSER
Stanley had a genuine love and admiration of artists. He wanted artists to be
there.Whentheyredidthelobby,theywantedapaintingofmine.Hesenthisson
David down to my studio, and David picked something out. It was a great epis-
ode for me. At this time, Stanley managed to get paintings from me, from Phillip
Taaffe, Joe Andoe, 89 —a whole new generation of artists in there.
OnetimeIwastherewhentherewassomeeventdownstairsinthelobby.Ed-
ward Albee 90 was at the event, and he said to Stanley, “Isn't that a John Zinsser
painting?”
Stanley came up to me and said, “Edward Albee just noticed your painting!
He knows your work!” For him it was great, and it was a huge thrill for me.
When I first moved into the Chelsea, they had that famous Larry Rivers
“DutchMasters”cigarpaintinginthelobby.IrecentlysawitattheGuggenheim:
“Gift of Stanley Bard.”
Here's another story about Stanley and his generosity. The art dealer who
first showed my work in New York was a gallery owner named Julian Pretto. He
gave lots of people their first shows, people who subsequently became important
artists. But he also had these strong ties to a generation of artists from the 70s,
whichincludedSolLeWittandparticularlyCarlAndre. 91 Prettowasaverygood
friend of Carl Andre, an American minimalist sculptor.
Carl Andre, by the time I met him, was obviously a deeply considerate, ser-
ious artist, very important in the 60s and 70s. He was also very loyal to Julian
Pretto.WhenPrettostartedtogetsickwithAIDS,hehadnohealthinsurance.He
had nowhere to live—he basically lived out of his galleries. So Carl Andre came
to visit my apartment, 622. His sculptures, by the way, are these geometric floor
pieces set out in grids. So I was very concerned about laying out the tea crackers
on the platter in the right way!
But he had come to talk to me about whether we could actually get Julian
Pretto a room at the Chelsea when he was dying. I talked to Stanley on Andre's
behalf. I played to Stanley's art appreciation and love of famous people. I told
him who Pretto was, his whole history, and who he had worked with, and that he
was dying of AIDS. He needed a place to stay.
“Is it possible to get him in here?”