Now at the Wolfsonian

Portrait of Kay | Mac Harshberger

The Wolfsonian Museum in Miami is presenting “+5: Recent Acquisitions” showcasing the growth of the collection during the past five years.

Included in the exhibition is the elegant “Portrait of Kay” by Mac Harshberger, which was shown in San Francisco in 2009 for a final time before the William Whitney Collection was bequeathed to the Wolfsonian.

Due largely to Whitney’s efforts, Mac Harshberger’s work from the 1920s has gradually gained greater recognition in recent decades. Handsomely designed one-man exhibitions were mounted at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Honolulu Academy of Art and the Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Examples of Harshberger’s work are preserved in the permanent collections of those institutions and in the Wolfsonian.

Whitney authored An Elegance of Line, a monograph on Harshberger, which made its debut alongside an exhibition of Harshberger’s work at the Thomas Reynolds Gallery.

Read more: “Keeper of the Flame“

Sweeping up the heart

Portrait of William, 1939 | Mac Harshberger

Our friend William had 88 good years and was in the hospital for only a few days at the end. He died peacefully, in his sleep, at about 7 in the morning, as we held his hands. He just stopped breathing.

We said goodbye for the last time. Then we walked back down the hill to his house, a block and a half away, near the park where he played as a child. We went into the back, into his garden room, with its burnt orange walls, and lit a fire.

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