IN tribute Peter Rona If you’ve been to a tribal art show anytime in the last few decades, you may or may not have noticed a quiet, rather slight man with inquiring blue eyes carefully but unobtrusively 158 examining artwork after artwork and exchanging pleasantries with various dealers. This was Dr. Peter Rona. You might not have guessed it to look at him but this was one of the world’s preeminent deep-sea explorers and oceanographers, who was also a passionate enthusiast of traditional art from cultures around the world. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1934, Peter took an early interest in rocks and minerals and in learning about the world around him. After completing a bachelors degree at Brown and a masters at Yale in geology, he met a group of oceanographers who were in New York for a conference in late 1958. Talking to them hooked him on the ocean—the last frontier on earth, as he referred to it—the exploration of which he was to devote his life to. He went back to Yale and, after a stint with an oceanographic lab at Columbia studying the physics of sound in the sea, received a Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics in 1967. Soon after, he got a research position with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and, in 1994, a professorship at Rutgers University. He spent his career exploring and mapping the deep Atlantic with dredges, cameras, echo sounders, and all sorts of hightech equipment, as well as personal observation using small deep-sea submarines. markably generous with his time and knowledge. I spoke with Jerry a few days before he died, just after his return from a two-month stay with his adopted Ivoirian family in Abidjan. During his visit, Jerry had led an art study tour of young museum professionals around the country that went wonderfully well, and he had begun discussions with bankers in Abidjan about ways that the art environment in Côte d’Ivoire might be developed and fostered, and the role he might play in helping to bring the commercial world and the art world together to the benefit of both. His work at the Africa Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum continued until his dying day. He was an extraordinary mentor, teacher, colleague, and friend, with a fine wit and a deep love of culture in all its manifestations. Though I will always miss him, memories of our many conversations and adventures will sustain me for the rest of my time here on earth. Robert T. Soppelsa Jerry Vogel I met Jerry Vogel in 1973 during my first year of African art studies. It was in his office at Crossroads Africa in downtown New York City, and as we talked, I noticed small, beautiful objects on his desk: a heddle pulley and one or two small bronzes. From the first, it was clear to me that he not only loved beautiful objects but also had deep understanding of those objects. I soon learned Jerry and Susan Vogel were connected to virtually every important contact in the world of African art studies: in the academic world, in the museum world, and in the world of dealers and collectors. Some years later, during my first visit their loft on Prince Street, I was stunned by the quantity and quality of the collection. Hot all of the pieces here were small: monumental sculpted figures and large helmet masks, dramatically lit, sat high on pedestals behind the sofa, providing visual excitement at every turn. Objects in pottery, terracotta, bronze, ivory, and fiber were everywhere. An enormous wall assemblage from the Sudan (now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York) filled one entire wall. Other works of obvious quality and age complemented the African art: Japanese woodblock prints, an etching by Vlaminck, works on paper by Roy Lichtenstein and Iba Ndiaye. The place was a feast for the eyes. Since then, Jerry and I have had many long discussions during visits to that loft, continuing after the late 1980s at his place around the corner on Wooster Street. I have been endlessly thrilled by his good taste and extraordinary connoisseurship. We have shared many delicious meals during which we discussed literature, politics, film, fashion, the state of our discipline, and countless other subjects. Jerry’s grasp of African expressive material culture was truly unequaled and he was always re- He reckoned that he had probably spent more time in submersibles on the bottom of the ocean than any other marine scientist. Perhaps his most lauded success came in 1985 when he and his expedition discovered thermal vents in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that, in addition to their vast commercial potential, were home to and entire ecosystem of life forms never before seen by man and possibly providing clues about the very formation of life on earth. Subsequently, Between 1999 and 2003, Rona and his Rutgers colleague, Richard Lutz, served as science directors for Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, an IMAX film that took viewers down with them to explore deep-sea vents in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The film has since been seen by 165 million people around the world. Peter’s collecting was a low-key pursuit—so much so that even his family didn’t know much about—but he amassed a collection of hundreds of artworks. He was a regular attendee of art shows and gallery events, both large and small, in the United States and Europe. Rather than chasing masterpieces, he gravitated toward objects that had personal meaning to him—ones that he found on his travels around the world or pieces that he acquired from dealers that he had friendships with, sometimes just to help them out of a tight spot. In this, he was an uncommonly kind and generous individual, something that I experienced first-hand. Discovering my fondness for coffee, for years he regularly sent me packages of a delicious Cuban blend that he had some means of accessing through his network of contacts. Peter left us in February of this year. His quiet presence will be truly missed, both above the waves and below. Jonathan Fogel
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