Red-faced Met Museum honchos admitted in a hastily called powwowwith fuming wealthy donors that they had made a “mistake’’ in honoring convicted antisemite designer John Galliano, sources said.
During a late-afternoon Zoom meeting Monday with the esteemed art institution’s well-heeled board of trustees, CEO Max Hollein and billionaire board co-chair Tony James acknowledged gripes that the museum should have sought more input about the controversial selection, said those with knowledge of the embarrassing session to The Post.
“They admitted it was a mistake,” a source said of the one-hour meeting — which was held hours after the castigated haute-couture creator, who once publicly declared, “I love Hitler,’’ announced he would be withdrawing from being honored at the Met Gala’s famous star-studded ball in May, as well as with a specially curated costume exhibit.
“There was a conversation that the process did not work and they made the wrong decision,’’ the source said.
James personally acknowledged that in hindsight, Galliano, 65, was the wrong choice at the wrong time especially given widespread concerns about rising antisemitism, sources said.
New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, an ex officio trustee who helped drive mounting protest against Galliano’s selection, spoke during the meeting and reiterated that honoring the onetime catwalk virtuoso was a bad move, sources said.
But while copping to botching the 2027 mega-fund-raising gala, Met execs and some trustees still refused to take on 76-year-old Vogue editrix Anna Wintour — and even her flamboyant buddy Galliano.
“People were complimentary of Anna,” a source said — adding that Met leadership was grateful that Galliano bowed out on his own.
Wintour, the ironfisted power behind the gala, has remained loyal to the eccentric Galliano, helping him to continue his fantastical work in the fashion field since his fall from grace.
Around 2011, Galliano was the star of legendary fashion house Dior when he was caught on camera hissing horrific anti-Jewish vitriol at various patrons of a cafe in Paris.
He blamed being booze- and drug-addled at the time, copped a mea culpa, entered rehab — and then seemed to make nice with some key Jewish national leaders.
But a fashion publicist recently recountedhow she and a friend had an antisemitic encounter with Galliano years later, in 2019, in which he sneered over her pal speaking in Hebrew. Galliano has denied the encounter ever happened.
Wintour has stood by the disgraced designer through it all, even calling his decision to step down from his Met fete “courageous.’’
No decision was made about a replacement “theme’’ for the gala or exhibit, Met officials noted at the meeting, sources said.
But there also was heightened discussion and soul-searching about the Met’s values overall, sources said.
“I felt that it was a two-part problem,’’ said Met donor Alice Tisch, referring to Galliano’s selection, to The Post on Monday after his sensational bow-out.
“It was the Jewish problem — which is so, you know, heightened right now with all of the issues and all of the antisemitism,” said Tisch, who is not a trustee.
“But as much as that, it was the governance issue that just bespeaks a larger problem and something that should not be,” she said.
“You can’t have one donor to the museum, whether they’re a trustee or not, saying ‘We’re going to do this show, this is an artist we need to promote,’” said Tisch, a relative of NYPD Commish Jessica Tisch. “It’s got to come from curatorial. There’s got to be church and state. This stuff has to be a little separate.
“I did enough research into it,’’ she said. “I was thinking, it’s got to be that at least 50 percent of the donors to the Met are Jews — you know, historic big collections.
“There’s the Lehman collection, the Gelman collection, the Annenberg collection. There’s a lot of great Jewish collections there.
“So they’re also running a Lee Krasner and a Jackson Pollock show at the same time. And that’s when I started to think, what would Lee Krasner do? What would one of these Jewish artists’ responses be to the Met for showing this art?”
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