The Mysterious Disappearance and Lingering Legacy of Michael Rockefeller

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More than 1,800 works from five continents are showcased in the reimagined Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is set to reopen on May 31 following a multiyear renovation. Among them are pieces that the late Rockefeller personally collected from Dutch New Guinea 64 years ago, when he was 23 years old.
Rockefeller, the youngest son of then-New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, never returned from that trip to a continent 9,000 miles away.
Michael Rockefeller disappeared on Nov. 19, 1961, after swimming away from his overturned catamaran several miles off the coast of New Guinea, seeking help for himself and an anthropologist companion. Land was visible but far away—it could have been as far as 10 miles. Rockefeller's last words to that friend were 'I think I can make it.'
After an intense search by multiple governments joined by thousands of people, not a trace of Rockefeller was found. On Feb. 2, 1964, a Westchester County judge declared Michael Rockefeller 'died by drowning … while on exploration off the coast of Dutch New Guinea.'
That conclusion has been questioned ever since, with theories ranging from Rockefeller being eaten by sharks or crocodiles, willfully escaping from Western society to live in New Guinea, being captured and held prisoner by indigenous tribes, and being murdered and even consumed by tribes that practice headhunting and cannibalism because of a grievance against Dutch police.
The questions about Rockefeller's fate have not died away but seem to be growing ever-louder, fueling an army of podcast episodes, YouTube videos, documentaries, and a New York Times bestseller, Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest, by journalist Carl Hoffman.
For some, the disappearance without a trace of a handsome young man with a famous last name has become a nostalgic scandal in our modern era of true crime documentaries and Internet sleuthing. In the photos that survive of Rockefeller in New Guinea, he looks as if he's mesmerized by his surroundings, lending a sense of foreboding to the images.
He was 'routinely described as kind, gentle, hardworking, and without pretense,' Hoffman wrote in Savage Harvest. However, being so young and coming from one of America's richest families may have not equipped Rockefeller with the perception and caution needed in a place that could be dangerous.
When Rockefeller traveled among New Guinea's Asmat people, seeking objects to acquire for his father's new museum of then-called 'primitive art' near the Museum of Modern Art, 'he seemed unconscious of his own role in distorting the local economy and disrupting village ceremony, or of the contradictory nature of his entire enterprise. Here was the heir to one of the largest fortunes on earth plundering sacred objects for pennies—the most privileged person on earth dabbling in the world of the most marginalized,' Hoffman wrote in Savage Harvest.
In a recent interview, Hoffman says, 'The legacy of Michael Rockefeller is a conversation we can have about the collecting of indigenous art. We can use his story to talk about him and about the practices of collecting art now that we know better' than in 1961.
Michael Rockefeller was raised in New York City. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in history and economics. But art always called to him.
Michael was 'the most purely aesthetic member of the family,' according to The Rockefellers, an American Dynasty, by Peter Collier and David Horowitz. He showed enthusiasm about art from a young age, which was a tradition in the Rockefeller family. Nelson Rockefeller's mother, Abby Aldrich, was the driving force behind the founding of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. 'On his honeymoon, Nelson collected the first object (a Sumatran knife handle in the shape of a shrunken head) in what would become the best primitive art collection in the country,' according to The Rockefellers. At the age of 31, Nelson was the president of MoMA.
As a child, Michael enjoyed accompanying his father on weekend art dealer visits and being around great works of art. He wanted to study architecture but was pressured to major in economics, according to books about the Rockefellers.
After a six-month stint in the U.S. Army Reserve, Michael heard about an exciting opportunity: an expedition by the Film Study Center at Harvard's Peabody Museum. A group of anthropologists and a film crew were planning to study tribes in the Baliem Valley in Dutch New Guinea 'untouched by Western culture' in order 'to step back into the Stone Age.' Michael was hired as a sound man and photographer for the film. 'He had a great eye for beauty and craftmanship,' Hoffman says.
Michael was transformed by the trip, taking many photographs and writing letters that reflected his fascination. He was particularly drawn to the Asmat tribe in the coastal area of New Guinea, writing, 'The Asmat is filled with a kind of tragedy. For many of the villages have reached that point where they are beginning to doubt their own culture and crave things western.'
Michael deeply wanted to understand and honor these cultures. The Asmat were famous for their elaborate woodcarvings, particularly ancestor poles (called bisj poles) and spirit masks. However, the Asmat also carried a reputation for headhunting, which was embedded in their spiritual beliefs and complex rituals of revenge against rivals. While the Dutch later assured the Rockefellers that headhunting had been eradicated in the area, many authorities agree it was still going on in the 1960s.
Michael flew home to New York after the Peabody film was finished and he had completed his subsequent trip to see the Asmat. In the last weeks of his trip, he'd purchased a number of bisj poles and some shields. According to Hoffman's reporting, Rockefeller paid for the Asmat people's work with tobacco, axes, fishing lines, and hooks. While back in New York, his parents announced a decision to divorce, which upset all the children. Michael decided to return to New Guinea as soon as possible in order to collect the art of the Asmat. According to some sources, he was determined to turn away from a finance career and seek a graduate degree in anthropology. When Michael went to New Guinea for his second trip, he bartered for poles, canoes, drums, shields, and other carved objects—hundreds of objects.
Rockefeller was traveling among the Asmat communities when rough waves overturned his catamaran and, after 24 hours clinging to it, he decided to swim to shore, assuring his anthropologist friend he was a strong swimmer.
Michael Rockefeller had a twin sister, Mary, who accompanied their father Nelson to fly to New Guinea after Michael was reported missing. She wrote in her book, When Grief Calls Forth the Healing: A Memoir of Losing a Twin, 'All the evidence, based on the strong offshore currents, the high seasonal tides, and the turbulent outgoing waters, as well as the calculations that Michael was approximately 10 miles from shore when he began to swim, supports the prevailing theory that he drowned before he was able to reach land.'
No conclusive evidence of another fate besides drowning has ever been introduced to a legal authority. However, following Michael's disappearance, rumors began to spread of a killing and were collected by the Dutch priests who lived among the Asmat as missionaries.
In his book, Hoffman, who traveled to the Asmat region twice and learned the Indonesian language spoken there, investigated these persistent rumors. He uncovered some of the initial reports made to Dutch officials and, to immerse himself in the community, briefly lived in the home of a man believed to be related to a member of the group that may have killed Michael. One theory is that Michael was killed not because of personal animosity toward him but because he, as a white man, represented white authority. Five Asmat men were shot in a Dutch police altercation several years earlier. 'It was a struggle between the powerful and the conquered,' Hoffman says.
Rockefeller was caught among colliding forces, Hoffman believes. While trying to honor the Asmat, Michael's collecting reflected 'colonialism and the acquisition of the treasures of the conquered.'
It's beyond debate that Michael Rockefeller was drawn to the beauty, complexity, and mystery of the bisj poles. He wrote that the poles showed 'a revenge figure …. Whose placement usually preceded a headhunt in former days. The figures represented people who have been headhunted and will be avenged.'
In the reimagined Michael C. Rockefeller wing, visitors will see those Asmat woodcarvings and soaring poles, illuminated by filtered daylight from Central Park through a custom-designed, state-of-the-art sloped glass wall. The wing's galleries are devoted to three major collections: the Arts of Africa, the Ancient Americas, and Oceania. Among the monumental statues and exquisite metalwork displayed today, objects that span five continents and hundreds of cultures, the art of the Asmat has a valued place. In 1962, when Rockefeller's collected objects were first shown in New York and people could see the bisj poles, drums, shields, and ancestor figures, the New York Times said it was "a collection that has no counterpart on this continent."
Art is not Rockefeller's only legacy. In 1965, his family created a memorial fellowship at Harvard. The fellowship enables recipients to "seek, as Michael did, a deeper understanding of our common human experience and their part in it, through the respectful exploration of a different culture." Since then, more than 200 Rockefeller Fellows have traversed the globe.
Michael Rockefeller's life was cut tragically short. He left footprints that can be seen, and shared, many decades later.
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