Our turn : a gift for Tad [portfolio].

In 2011 the Whitney Museum of Art honored Calvin "Tad" Tomkins for his illustrious career as an art critic for The New Yorker, where his legendary profiles of contemporary artists have appeared over many decades. In a gift organized by then director Adam Weinberg and benefactor Donna Rosen, the Whitney presented Tad Tomkins with a portfolio of twenty-two drawings, photographs, and letters creating by leading contemporary artists in tribute to his career. These pieces range from inscribed photographs of artworks by George Condo, Jeff Koons, and Cindy Sherman to original drawings by Elizabeth Peyton, Christo, and Julie Mehretu. One of the most striking pieces in the portfolio is a watercolor by American artist Jasper Johns, which includes playful references to Marcel Duchamp, one of Johns's great inspirations and of course the subject of books by Calvin Tomkins. The watercolor references Duchamp's own Self-Portrait in Profile, as well as two works of Jasper Johns inspired by Duchamp's piece.