I first met Robert Irwin in 1970, when the then-director of the then-Pasadena Museum of Art was installing two Irwin pieces in his home. One was a greyish white cast acrylic disc about 6 ft. in diameter, slightly curved, with a polished metal band across it. Quite astonishing. Underneath it was a waterbed, the same color, the same size. Irwin knew about this juxtaposition and was considered too cool to care. I learned he had made himself quite independent of the art world’s financial knocks by getting his living from betting on horses. What was his secret? He always bet to win.

In the early 80’s, I attended his 50th birthday party, and actually got to sit beside him. By then, he was — to look at — the genius straight from Central Casting: the beard, the far-seeing blue gaze, level no matter what it found. I was familiar with his famous prohibition of the camera wherever his work was shown, and I wanted to draw him out a bit about it. He told me that, years from now, he didn’t want the reputation of his work, or any interest people had in it, to depend on there being good shots of it easily obtained. That was the way we knew the world, including the Taj Mahal, he said, and there was really something wrong with that, something he refused to participate in. What must he think of the Internet?