Sketches from Life

Robert W. Duemling offers “sketches” of notable figures whom he has befriended over the course of his thirty-year career in the U.S. State Department and service as director of the National Building Museum, luminaries in the arts, architecture, politics, and diplomacy.
Robert W. Duemling's long career took him from Yale to the U.S. State Department where he worked his way up the ranks to become Ambassador to Suriname and then to Washington where he became the second director of the National Building Museum. Along the way, Duemling met and befriended an astonishing array of important figures in the arts, architecture, politics, and diplomacy. In this breezy, elegant collection of "sketches" of many of his friends and acquaintances, he limns the character and personality of his subjects with wit, intelligence, insight, and gentle humor. In so doing, he also provides the reader with a fascinating glimpse of his own remarkable life around the world and at home.