Intimate History of an Artful Life Won’t Be on Display at This Museum

Alice Goldfarb Marquis does not think of herself as a muckraker.

She’s a historian, a visiting scholar at UC San Diego, a former newspaper publisher who earned a midlife doctorate and dedicated herself to serious research.

Four years ago she decided to chronicle the life and artistic times of the late Alfred H. Barr Jr., the reserved but iron-willed connoisseur who bestrode the art world from 1927 to 1969 as founding director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The result was “Alfred H. Barr Jr.: Missionary for the Modern.” The New York Times called it a “superlative job” of capturing Barr’s personality and the savagery of art world in-fighting.

The reaction at MOMA has been cool. The book will not be included in the museum’s Christmas catalogue, nor will it be sold in the bookstore.

Marquis says she had been assured that MOMA was interested. A MOMA spokeswoman said the museum never carries biographies, although she declined to explain.

Marquis suspects the museum lions are annoyed because the book discusses Barr’s coolness, his asexual manner, and his fondness for catering to the whims of rich patrons. She also includes heretofore hush-hush financial information.

The museum stonewalled her efforts to obtain purchase figures for individual art works. Luckily, much of Barr’s private correspondence is being catalogued by the Smithsonian Institution and thus is open to the public.

“Getting information out of the museum about money is about as easy as getting inside the Stealth fighter,” said Marquis. “Museums love to tell the public how poor they are and how they need support, but they’re reluctant to talk real money.”

Marquis, 59, once published weekly newspapers in the South Bay. Since joining academe, she has published her doctoral thesis on Marcel Duchamp and a book on the 1930s, “Hopes and Ashes.”

“I remember growing up in New York, spending hours at the museum and thinking what a wonderful man Alfred Barr must be,” she said. “It bugs me that the people who now run the museum have decided that I should be the target of censorship.”

FBI Agent Stays Off Silberman’s Case

Retired FBI agent William F. Roemer Jr., one-time head of the bureau’s organized crime unit in Chicago, says he turned down an offer to help the defense in the Dick Silberman money-laundering trial.

In his recently published book, “Roemer: Man Against the Mob,” Roemer says he was asked for help by Silberman’s attorney, James Brosnahan, but declined because he has a policy against working on the opposite side of his former FBI colleagues.

Roemer said he had never heard of Silberman but is well-acquainted with the record of co-defendant Chris Petti. “I remember Chris when he was a minor burglar in Chicago,” he said.

He won’t comment on the merits of the case, but he predicted that Brosnahan’s expected challenge to the “roving” wiretap law that was used against Silberman will fail.

He noted that, although the law is new, the process is not. The FBI bugged seven public telephones in Tucson to get information to convict mobster Joe Bonanno, Roemer said.

“The statute may be new, but the whole idea of tapping public phones has been tested and upheld in court,” Roemer said.

Park Pigeons Go on Reduction Diet

Take the item and run.

* News from the avian birth control division.

The pigeon population at Balboa Park is down to about 850. Three years ago it was 4,000 to 5,000; droppings were at high tide and rising.

That’s when the city hired Lloyd Pest Control to begin spreading around contraceptive-laden corn meal. The results are now in: pigeon pregnancies are as rare as Charger touchdowns.

* Lest you think opera is for wimps:

Alexander Morozov was one of the few partygoers at Monday night’s Sea World bash for Soviet arts festival performers who could consistently sling the sledgehammer hard enough to ring the bell in a test-of-strength game.

Morozov, bass soloist from Leningard’s Kirov Opera, plays the title role in “Boris Godunov.”