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| "Shore Leave" - Version I |
About thirty years ago, I did a series of paintings that
were some of the best I have ever done. It was like the sun the moon and the
stars were all in alignment and each piece was better than the last. For once,
I had lots of uninterrupted time (more important than you realize), rolls of
good, rough-textured canvas (no longer available) and a supply of thick sticks
of hard charcoal (also not around any more). I had learned how to fall into a
semi-conscious “alpha” state where ideas just poured out of me. Soft brown
washes, a sensitive charcoal line accented by darker browns, grays and whites;
nothing was preplanned. I tried not to sell any of them, knowing that here was
work that would ultimately make my reputation as an artist.
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| "Shore Leave" - Version II |
I did part with two pieces. One I sold willingly to a
close friend. The other, I gave away on a long-term loan. I’ve never seen
either painting again and no longer even know where they are. The one I got real
money for was purchased by a friend who lived in Westchester County; she
promised me “perpetual visiting rights.” Unfortunately, she and her husband
moved to upstate New York and then to Canada and when I offered to buy the
piece back, she said no, it was her favorite and under no circumstances was she
giving it up. I never received a forwarding address from her. The good news was
that I had a decent photograph of it.
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| "Shore Leave" - Version III |
The other painting
was borrowed by a man I knew who was moving from Norwalk to New York City to
become one of TV’s earliest “celebrity chefs”; he could be seen on CBS every
Sunday morning. He wanted it to decorate his new Riverside Drive apartment,
convincing me that he would entertain the rich and famous and they would all
rush to Stamford to buy my work. Years went by and I lost touch with him as
well. My daughter discovered that he had moved to London and had opened a
highly successful Southern barbecue restaurant in Notting Hill. I contacted him
about my painting and was told that he had left it in storage when he moved to
London and it had been inadvertently sold at auction, seller and buyer unknown.
He had a lawsuit going against the storage company but had no idea when the
case would be settled. I had a not-very-clear snapshot of it, but good enough
to prove that it was mine.
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| "Street Scene" - Version I |
About two years ago, I received a call from a friend who
was familiar with my work. She said, “I think there’s a painting of yours at
one of the antique centers in the South End” and she sent me a photo from her
I-phone. It was the painting that had disappeared from storage. I rushed down
to claim it but unfortunately, by the time I got there, it had been sold. The
dealer, sensing trouble (stolen goods), developed a severe case of amnesia; he
had no idea who bought it, “a picker from the Midwest; never saw him before in
my life; paid cash.” I filed a report with the police and went on with my life.
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| "Street Scene" - Version II |
About a year ago, I decided to see if I could recreate the
lost pieces; after all, I had photos to work from. But even with images to
copy, I couldn’t do it. My first attempts were a disaster but I kept trying and
each time got a little bit better. The most recent versions, even though they
don’t look like the originals, are good in their own way. I felt a little less
guilty about recreating past work when I recently learned that Chagall spent
the last few years of his life trying to borrow back some of his great early
paintings in order to copy them Their present owners, as you can imagine, were
not happy to see their originals duplicated.
Here are some early paintings along with more recent
versions.
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