Queer Places:
4264 N Juneau St, Portland, OR 97203
Museum of Modern Art, 11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019
Waldo Rasmussen (September 16, 1928 - August 15, 2013) joined the
Museum of Modern Art staff in 1954. He was appointed the director of the Department of Circulating Exhibitions in 1962, and then director of the International Program in 1969. He organized the first exhibitions of modern American art to be seen overseas. At his retirement in 1994, in an oral interview, he commented on the LGBT legacy at MOMA, “The number of distinguished homosexuals at the Museum…is a very distinguished group, beginning, after all, with
Philip Johnson,” but also the culture of homophobia:
The contribution gay men have made to the Museum has been very important, and there was a time in…probably in the late ‘40s, there was an attack on the Museum for the number of gay men and lesbian women on the staff, and that this was coloring the program.
Waldo Rasmussen, 1994
A native of Tekoa, Washington, whose father was a Native American, Waldo
worked at the Portland Art Museum while he was at Reed, where he earned a BA
in general literature and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He attended graduate
school at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York and then joined the Museum of
Modern Art, where he worked on the preparation and circulation of traveling
exhibitions and became director of the department of circulating exhibitions
in 1962. The experience, he said, “made me understand what it felt like to see
exhibitions and original works of art for the first time after having seen
them in reproductions only—away from the ‘center.’ It’s shaped the way I’ve
always worked.” When the International Program became an independent
department in 1969, Waldo was appointed to direct it. He organized the first
exhibitions of modern American art to be sent abroad, an experience that he
cited among the high points of his career. His landmark exhibition was Two
Decades of American Paintings 1945–65 and American Abstract Expressionists,
and he assembled the most extensive survey of modern Latin American art in the
exhibition Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century. He retired in
1994.
In addition to his work in art, he enjoyed classical music, dance and
theatre performances, and film.
Waldo and Gail Marie (Geraldine) Preston were married in 1953 and had a son
and daughter. Waldo Rasmussen died on August 15, 2013, in New York City, from
complications of Alzheimer’s disease. Waldo was survived by his life companion
and spouse, John Dowling. At Rasmussen's death, Dowling published a simple
obituaty in the New York Time: ASMUSSEN--Waldo. Sept. 16, 1928 - Aug. 15, 2013
In loving memory of Waldo, always with me. John Dowling.
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