THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
January 5, 1996
Remarks By First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
at The Sculpture Garden Reception
The White House
MRS. CLINTON: Please be seated and welcome to the White
House. I wish the weather were just a little warmer so we could
be out in the garden, but we are so pleased to have you here in
the East Room. And I am very sorry that because of the prior
government shutdown in November, we were forced to postpone the
original opening, and I deeply regret any inconvenience that this
necessary but regrettable postponement caused any of you. We are,
as you know, in the middle of another partial government
shutdown, but thankfully we were able to hold this ceremony
because the White House Appropriations Bill was one of those that
was passed and the President signed.
But I am happy to report that the exhibit did open in
October in glorious weather, and in time for the Arts and
Humanities Celebration here at the White House. A thousand or
more people saw the exhibit that first day, and thousands and
thousands more have been enjoying it during October, November and
into December. This is the third in a series of exhibitions of
20th century American sculpture that have been installed at the
Jacqueline Kennedy Garden here at the White House. As some of you
know this exhibit was inspired in part by Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
My much too brief friendship with her left an indelible
impression on me, and the garden is a lasting, living tribute to
the extraordinary artistic and cultural contributions she made to
the White House. It became possible because others shared my hope
that the White House could be an exhibition place for modern
American art as well as the extraordinary White House collection
of art that you see around you here in this room with the Gilbert
Stewart and in other rooms throughout the house.
I must say that every time I come into the East Room, and
particularly on an occasion like this, I am always grateful to
another of my predecessors, Dolly Madison. Because it was Dolly
Madison during the War of 1812, when James Madsion, who was the
last of our presidents actually to be Commander in Chief in the
field, was out with the troops in 1814, who was here preparing a
dinner for her husband and all of the officers who had returned
when word came that the British were advancing, had broken
through, were on their way to the house. So she, I think in one
of the great heroic moments in American history, began to gather
up many of the treasures here in the house and took down the
Gilbert Stewart portrait of George Washington, rolled it up and
escaped right before the British.
I have said this in both Canada, where the commanding
general of the British forces was based, and recently in the
United Kingdom, that we don't forget -- although we are great
friends. And some of you may notice on the front part of the
White House we've actually left some of the stone exposed where
the burn marks show. And the thing that I do find hard to forgive
is that, at least I have been told, the British came into the
house, ate the dinner Dolly Madison had prepared and then burned
it.
Well, we are still here, and we have survived much over our
history. And that is also part of what I had hoped with these
exhibits, because they represent the diverse and rich talents of
this extraordinary country of ours. I am thrilled that some of
the artists whose works are exhibited could be with us today. And
i think one only needs to look, and I hope all of you get a
chance to look, at the intriguing sculptures in this particular
exhibit. They embody the transformations of both 20th century and
society. Among them is an abstract sculpture by Georgia O'Keefe,
who many of us casual art lovers knew only as a painter. In a
house full of wonderful, 200-year-old antiques, it is also a
blessing to live amongst objects that represent the era in which
we live.
Well, the president and I believe strongly that art should
be accessible to everyone, because it has the power to evoke in
each of us a deeper understanding of our lives and of the world
around us. This is a particularly difficult and challenging time
in Washington and in our country, but art can make our spirits
soar and remind us of life's possibilities and of our human
powers to imagine and to create. And is gives me great
satisfaction that amongst the more than one and a half million
American and foreign visitors who walk through this house, the
only residence of a head of state open to tourists, that they
will be able to share in this artistic exhibition. They walk down
through the colonnade, and on a day like this even when it's cold
outside where the sun is shining, they can look out and as their
standing in line, begin to think about what it means, what their
own lives mean. And for me that is a great gift that you have
made possible.
This exhibition celebrates the sculptors themselves. Ann
Tucker once said, "All art requires is courage." You could amend
that and say, "All life requires is courage." But sometimes it is
art that displays and embodies that courage for us. So I would
like, on behalf of the President and myself, to thank the artists
who are featured in this exhibit.
I also want to thank and recognize the people who have made
this exhibit and our prior ones possible. It took enormous
generosity, dedication, wisdom, planning and just plain hard work
to make this happen. Special thanks to Peter Marzio, the director
of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and Alison Delema Green,
the curator of the Museum of Fine arts in Houston. I also want to
say a special word of gratitude to the Iris and B. Gerald Canter
Foundation and to my friend Iris Canter who is here. I don't know
of any other two Americans who have done more to support and
promote the arts and particularly sculpture. The White House is
such a richer, more beautiful place because of their generosity.
I want also to thank J. Carter Brown, who sheparded this idea
that was inchoate, to say the best about it, to fruition. I also
want to thank the lending institutions that are acknowledged in
the program, the White House Preservation Committee and the White
House Historical Association, which are such great partners in
promoting and maintaining this house. A special word of thanks to
the curator of the White House, Rex Scouton, and his very able
and dedicated assistants, the Association of Art Museum Director
and its president, Sylvia Williams. All of them deserve
certainly, my thanks, but far beyond my thanks, you deserve the
thanks of every American whether they see the exhibit or not --
because of what you are doing to keep inspiring us, keep giving
us a sense of human possibility.
You know, in this time of great global change and as we
approach not only a new century, but a new millennium, with the
pace of technological change occurring at a rate far beyond the
capacity for human beings to comprehend, let alone understand or
adjust to -- art becomes more and more important. It is the very
first way one goes back to the cave drawing and the tiny figures
of women carved from bone, that people knew they were something
in addition to just foragers for food and survivors against the
elements. We are a long way in time from those days, but we have
the same needs to understand ourselves and to appreciate what
stays human despite the changes around us.
And so in this time of change and very difficult adjustments
for people, we need art more than ever. So thank you for making
that possible for all of us. And now I look forward to greeting
you individually in the Blue Room and on to the reception in the
State Dining Room. Thank you all very much.
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