Appreciation from the world of art

In death as in life, she got them to look at art.

And to Anne d'Harnoncourt last night, they said thank you and good-bye.

About 2,000 friends, colleagues and admirers gathered at the Academy of Music for a warm and polished tribute to d'Harnoncourt, the longtime Philadelphia Museum of Art director whose death from a heart attack June 1 shook the local arts community and the tight-knit international art establishment.

The event, held on what would have been her 65th birthday, may not mitigate the kind of grief and dismay that has gripped the Art Museum in the last few months, but it does draw down an unofficial curtain on a summer of mourning. No fewer than four public and private events have been held in d'Harnoncourt's honor.

Last night's drew from a rarified slice of her sphere. Speakers from museums in London, New York and Los Angeles gave remarkably personal speeches, sharing peeks into the inner workings of the art world in voices quavering with emotion.

On a stage lined with white flowers, and black except for a lighted lectern and slides of works from the museum's collection, speakers recalled hunting for wild mushrooms with d'Harnoncourt and John Cage, her supreme focus on art in a field increasingly dominated by a business mindset, the almost prickly loyalty she engendered in artists, and the ease with which she moved among various circles.

To wit, the tribute drew local arts leaders, philanthropists and society types, but also artists Jasper Johns and Ellsworth Kelly. Christo and Jeanne-Claude were there (she with her signature flame hair), as were fashion designer Mary McFadden and architect Richard Gluckman.

"Since June it has been very difficult for me, as for so many others, to realize that she is not with us," said Jacqueline Matisse Monnier, the artist, granddaughter of the French master, keeper of the Marcel Duchamp archives and d'Harnoncourt friend for four decades.

As each speaker came on stage, a different work of art would appear on the screen behind the lectern. Haydn, Handel, Massenet and Schubert were performed by a string quintet, a pianist and mezzo-soprano Elisabeth von Magnus (d'Harnoncourt's cousin, daughter of conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt).

Agnes Gund, president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art, spoke of tempting d'Harnoncourt - in vain - to leave Philadelphia to lead that museum.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum of London, recalled the plummy sound of d'Harnoncourt's voice.

"Just to hear Anne talk was one of life's great pleasures," he said with an image of Bruce Nauman's spiral-neon The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths hovering behind him.

Her laugh, he said, was "the warm south wind of merriment."

"She was the most approachable of goddesses," said James N. Wood, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, who called on her for advice.

But it was d'Harnoncourt herself last night who had the last word when her viola-like voice filled the Academy in an audio excerpt from her recorded guided tour.

She spoke of Brancusi, and then about the museum's riches in general.

"You'll find your own favorites. . ." she said, prompting her admirers on to the art experience she shaped lovingly, one last time.