Kenneth Paul Block was a fashion illustrator whose artful strokes captured the elegance of high-couture women of the ‘50s, then the fluid look of later decades. For nearly 40 years, starting in the mid-‘50s, Block was an illustrator for Women’s Wear Daily and later for W magazine as well, both published by Fairchild Publications.
Kenneth Paul Block (noted in passing)
Kenneth Paul Block was a fashion illustrator whose artful strokes captured the elegance of high-couture women of the ‘50s, then the fluid look of later decades. For nearly 40 years, starting in the mid-‘50s, Block was an illustrator for Women’s Wear Daily and later for W magazine as well, both published by Fairchild Publications.
Noted in passing
Antonio Pineda, age 90, was a renowned Mexican modernist silversmith praised for his striking jewelry designs and ingenious use of gemstones. Pineda died of kidney failure in Taxco, Mexico on December 14, 2009.
No Time To Say Goodbye, available on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/
In 1962, six year old John Tuohy, his two brothers and two sisters entered Connecticut’s foster care system and were promptly split apart. Over the next ten years, John would live in more than ten foster homes, group homes and state schools, from his native Waterbury to Ansonia, New Haven, West Haven, Deep River and Hartford. In the end, a decade later, the state returned him to the same home and the same parents they had taken him from. As tragic as is funny compelling story will make you cry and laugh as you journey with this child to overcome the obstacles of the foster care system and find his dreams.
http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/0692361294/
http://amemoirofalifeinfostercare.blogspot.com/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John William Tuohy is a writer who lives in Washington DC. He holds an MFA in writing from Lindenwood University. He is the author of numerous non-fiction on the history of organized crime including the ground break biography of bootlegger Roger Tuohy "When Capone's Mob Murdered Touhy" and "Guns and Glamour: A History of Organized Crime in Chicago."
His non-fiction crime short stories have appeared in The New Criminologist, American Mafia and other publications. John won the City of Chicago's Celtic Playfest for his work The Hannigan's of Beverly, and his short story fiction work, Karma Finds Franny Glass, appeared in AdmitTwo Magazine in October of 2008.
His play, Cyberdate.Com, was chosen for a public performance at the Actors Chapel in Manhattan in February of 2007 as part of the groups Reading Series for New York project. In June of 2008, the play won the Virginia Theater of The First Amendment Award for best new play.
Contact John:
MYWRITERSSITE.BLOGSPOT.COM
JWTUOHY95@GMAIL.COM
From Professor William Anthony Connolly
This incredible memoir, No Time to Say Goodbye, tells of entertaining angels, dancing with devils, and of the abandoned children many viewed simply as raining manna from some lesser god.
The young and unfortunate lives of the Tuohy bruins—sometimes Irish, sometimes Jewish, often Catholic, rambunctious, but all imbued with Lion’s hearts— is told here with brutal honesty leavened with humor and laudable introspective forgiveness.
The memoir will have you falling to your knees thanking that benevolent Irish cop in the sky, your lucky stars, or hugging the oxygen out of your own kids the fate foisted upon Johnny and his siblings does not and did not befall your own brood.
John William Tuohy, a nationally-recognized authority on organized crime and Irish levity, is your trusted guide through the weeds the decades of neglect ensnared he and his brothers and sisters, all suffering for the impersonal and often mercenary taint of the foster care system.
Theirs, and Tuohy’s, story is not at all figures of speech as this review might suggest, but all too real and all too sad, and maddening. I wanted to scream. I wanted to get into a time machine, go back and adopt every last one of them. I was angry. I was captivated.
The requisite damning verities of foster care are all here, regretfully, but what sets this story above others is its beating heart, even a bruised and broken one, still willing to forgive and understand, and continue to aid its walking wounded. I cannot recommend this book enough
11 Times Great Actors Played Great Artists
BY KAT SOMMERS
The second season of Genius starts tonight (April 24) on the National Geographic Channel, turning its attention to the world of art and Pablo Picassoafter the first season dramatized the life of Albert Einstein.
Antonio Banderas stars as Spain’s greatest artist, following in the footsteps of Sir Anthony Hopkins, who portrayed him in 1996 Merchant Ivory film Surviving Picasso (with Clémence Poésy playing painter Françoise Gilot, the role played by Designated Survivor‘s Natascha McElhone).
It got us thinking about other great artists who’ve been portrayed in films — and the great actors who played them.
11. Robert Pattinson as Little Ashes (2008)
Surrealist Salvador Dalí has been played numerous times, most notably by Adrien Brody in Midnight in Paris and Robert Pattinson in this film about Dalí and his friends, the filmmaker Luis Buñuel and writer Federico García Lorca. Focusing on Dalí’s battle to suppress his sexuality, it was a brave and unusual performance so soon after his turn as vampire Edward Cullen in the first Twilight film.
10. Sally Hawkins in Maudie (2016)
It’s fair to say Sally Hawkins‘ 2017 film, The Shape of Water, overshadowed this one about Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis, and her unlikely romance with the reclusive Everett Lewis (Ethan Hawke). But her performance here is every bit as resolved, with subtle touches and a mischievous sense of humor.
9. Colin Firth in The Girl With the Pearl Earring (2003)
Based on the bestselling novel by Tracy Chevalier, this film about the woman behind one of the world’s most famous portraits (Scarlett Johansson) also features the painter himself, Johannes Vermeer, aka a rather fetching and bewigged Colin Firth.
8. Juliette Binoche in Camille Claudel 1915 (2014)
Chocolat star Juliette Binoche plays French sculptor Camille Claudel, who was confined by her family to an insane asylum after she suffered a breakdown. She stayed there for the next 30 years, deprived of all her art materials, and this sombre and deeply affecting film takes place two years after she’s committed.
7. Tony Curran in Doctor Who (2010)
Who would you choose if you could travel back in time to let someone know the impact their work would have after their death? In season five Doctor Whoepisode “Vincent and the Doctor,” our favorite Time Lord (Matt Smith) does just that when he takes Vincent van Gogh (Tony Curran), who died in penury in 1890 having never sold a single painting, to the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.
6. Salma Hayek in Frida (2002)
Salma was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, in a film that also starred Alfred Molina as Kahlo’s husband Diego Rivera. She lost out though, to another actress who depicted a creative genius: Nicole Kidman and her fake schnozz as Virginia Woolf in The Hours.
5. Ed Harris in Pollock (2000)
Ed Harris made his directorial debut with this biopic, as well as taking on the lead role of renowned American painter Jackson Pollock. It earned him a nomination for the Best Actor Oscar, while co-star Marcia Gay won hers for her supporting role as Pollock’s wife and fellow painter Lee Krasner.
4. Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner (2014)
Directed by Vera Drake and Happy-Go-Lucky filmmaker Mike Leigh, this biopic about impressionist painter J.M.W. Turner follows the last quarter century of his lifer, as the death of his father takes a profound toll on him. Snubbed by the Academy and BAFTA, Timothy Spall‘s lead performance won him the Best Actor award at Cannes.
3. Emma Thompson in Carrington (1995)
Emma Thompson led a stellar cast as painter Dora Carrington, one of the feted Bloomsbury Group whose members also included writer Lytton Strachey(Jonathan Pryce), painter Vanessa Bell (Janet McTeer) and diarist Frances Partridge (Alex Kingston). Rufus Sewell and Samuel West also star, as artist Mark Gertler and historian Gerald Brenan.
2. Jeffrey Wright in Basquiat (1996)
The 1980s New York art world comes to life in this film by artist-director Julian Schnabel, with Andy Warhol (David Bowie), art dealer Bruno Bischofberger(Dennis Hopper) and gallerist Mary Boone (Parker Posey) all represented. Front and center though is Westworld‘s Jeffery Wright, whose performance as the neo-expressionist painter Jean-Michel Basquiat became his breakout role.
1. Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot (1989)
“Daniel Day Lewis gives the greatest performance of his career,” says the trailer. Well, not quite. But in 1989 his performance as painter Christy Brown was the best of his career, and won him the first of three Best Actor Oscars.
John Tuohy's MY WRITERS SITE: Do what you can with what you have where you are
John Tuohy's MY WRITERS SITE: Do what you can with what you have where you are: DON’T WORRY-BE HAPPY Like this dog ABOUT THE AUTHOR John William Tuohy is a writer who lives in Washington DC. H...
John Tuohy's MY WRITERS SITE: WELCOME! Step right in!
John Tuohy's MY WRITERS SITE: WELCOME! Step right in!: WELCOME! DON’T WORRY-BE H APPY ABOUT THE AUTHOR John William Tuohy is a writer who lives in Washington DC. He holds an M...
John Tuohy's Connecticut History: Woodrow and Ellen Axson Wilson in Old Lyme
John Tuohy's Connecticut History: Woodrow and Ellen Axson Wilson in Old Lyme: This online exhibition was created in conjunction with the exhibition, The Art of First Lady Ellen Axson Wilson: American Impression...
John Tuohy's Connecticut History: Painting Connecticut
John Tuohy's Connecticut History: Painting Connecticut: 30" x 18" x 2" Subject Landscape Media Painting / Oil Style Impressionism Harkness Memorial ...
HIDDEN HISTORY: ART DECO IN THE TRADE LITERATURE COLLECTION
BY ERIN RUSHING
This post was written by Katie
Martin, Summer 2016 Art Deco Trade Literature Research internat the National
Museum of American History Library.
For six weeks in June and July,
my task was to research and identify materials from the trade literature and
world’s fair collections housed at the National Museum of American History
Library that showcase the Art Deco period in Chicago.
I earned bachelor’s degrees in
History and American Studies from Purdue University and am currently working
toward a master’s in Library Science with a specialization in Archives and
Records Management from Indiana University. With my background, I could not ask
for a better place to complete my required internship credits than the National
Museum of American History Library.
I began researching the Art Deco
period in Chicago before I left Indiana for the summer. Art Deco style stemmed
from the exhibitions of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et
Industrials Modernes held in Paris in 1925. Following the exposition, the style
made its way into the US and pervaded all aspects of design including
architecture, fashion, interior design, and household accessories. Art Deco
reflected advances in technology and industry by incorporating geometric
details, bright colors, and clean lines. At its height in the years between the
two World Wars, the style was referred to as modern, modernistic, or art
moderne. The 1933-1934 Chicago World’s
Fair, known as “A Century of Progress International Exposition,” was the peak
of the Art Deco movement in the Midwest. The Fair was held to celebrate the
city’s centennial and to illustrate progress in the fields of science,
engineering, social science, transportation, public health, and business. The
organizers decided to utilize an Art Deco motif because it was functional,
modern, simplistic, and served as a visual representation of progress.
Owens-Illinois Glass Company,
Toledo, OH. Owens-Illinois Glass Containers 1934 Chicago World’s Fair, 1934,
first pages of World’s Fair brochure.
When I arrived for my internship,
I was glad I started the research process early. The trade literature
collection consists of over 460,000 items that might include catalogs,
advertisements, price lists, company histories, manuals, and other related
materials representing over 36,000 companies.
Because the collection is so varied, it offers valuable insight into the
history of business, design, and consumerism. Six weeks is a short period of
time to look for materials in such a vast collection, so I tried to stick to a
research plan from the beginning.
I started by looking at the
library’s secondary source materials on Art Deco architecture, jewelry, appliances,
and décor to create a short list of Chicago companies with promising
connections to the 1933-34 World’s Fair. This was a great place to start and I
succeeded in finding catalogs featuring neon lighting, chandeliers, and
futuristic exhibitions for the Fair in my first week. After I completed this
list, I waded through 144 pages of search results from theCollections Search
Center. I searched for the term “Chicago” in the trade literature and looked
for companies with descriptions related to architecture, interior design,
household products, and general wholesale. This process kept me busy for weeks.
The collection has a minimum level of description in the online catalog because
it would be difficult to create an item-level description for companies that produced
hundreds of catalogs. The Westinghouse Electric and Mfg. Co., for example, has
over 9,000 individual pieces from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. In this
case, I searched through several boxes and found one catalog related to modern
lighting for movie theaters.
Joseph Hagn, Co., Chicago, IL.
Annual Counter Catalog No. 39, 1938, page 682, juvenile wagons.
Throughout my internship, I found
beautiful illustrations and pictures of interior and exterior lighting,
decorative glass, jewelry, and furniture that showcased the modern style in
Chicago. Interestingly, modern-style products were often mixed in alongside
items crafted in traditional styles. I expected to find architectural and
interior design elements; however, I was surprised to see Art Deco toasters,
waffle irons, wallets, and even baby carriages in my research! My favorite find
was a catalog called “Vitrolite Bathrooms – Kitchens” from the Vitrolite
Company that featured high-end Art Deco bathrooms described as “the dream come
true of many whose tastes have been hard to satisfy.”
Vitrolite Co., Chicago, IL.
Vitrolite Bathrooms – Kitchens, circa 1935, bathroom interior.
By the end of my internship, I
found more than 80 individual catalogs in the collection and looked through
materials from more than 150 companies. Ultimately, my list will be used to
determine a digitization plan for these materials in the future.
Although I spent a lot of time
digging into the trade literature, it was not all work and no play. I had the
opportunity to tour the Library of Congress with a Rare Book Cataloguer, go
behind-the-scenes at the National Zoo, and attend the annual staff picnic at
the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. My team even won the Smithsonian Intern
Scavenger Hunt! It was a wonderful experience and I’ll never forget my summer
in Washington, D.C. with the Smithsonian Libraries.
Sources consulted:
Ganz, Cheryl. The 1933 Chicago
World’s Fair: a century of progress. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
2008.
Weber, Eva. Art Deco in North
America. London: Bison Books, 1985.
A tale of two fish prints in Julia Child's kitchen
By Paula J. Johnson, August 11,
2016
To mark what would have been
Julia Child’s 104th birthday on August 15, curator Paula Johnson shares new
information on two works of art in Julia’s kitchen. To keep up with all the
latest Food History information and programs, including our Julia Child themed
Cooking Up History demonstration on August 12, join our Food History email
list!
As a curator of food history and
fisheries, I’m always delighted when these realms overlap. This happened
recently with two objects in Julia Child’s kitchen, when I learned the real
story (and not just a fish tale!) behind the fish prints that hang high on the
kitchen’s walls. Several months ago, I received two email messages from Pat
Pratt, a dear friend of Julia’s, who set the record straight on these works of
art. And in so doing, Pat gave us a glimpse of Julia as an intrepid angler, an
enthusiastic friend, and a curious cook in search of an answer to the nagging
question, “what went wrong with that dish?”
The Bluefish
Measuring 40” x 12,” the first
print hangs above the doorway connecting the kitchen and the pastry pantry. Our
catalog record noted that the object was made of paper, ink, and wood, and that
it was not signed, but little else. We weren’t sure of the species of fish, or
anything about the print’s origins, until Pat wrote:
“I made the print of the bluefish
on the day when Julia caught it off our Herreshoff 12-1/2 foot sailboat while
sailing in Saco Bay near Prouts Neck [Maine]. Julia and I were with my husband,
Herbert Pratt, at the tiller. It was the morning of August 31, 1975. Julia and
I were fishing for mackerel with the usual small-hooked, multicolored mackerel
rigs, holding the lines by hand over the sides of the gunwales. Suddenly Julia
yelped that she had a huge bite. With considerable pulling she got what we
thought would be multiple mackerel wiggling on the line. Instead, to our
amazement, it was a big fish. When we got it into the cockpit and onto the
deck, we realized it was a bluefish—the first one we had ever caught, or seen,
in Maine. We were all astounded.
“Julia said with glee that she
had been eager to cook a whole fish in a new way. We went ashore and showed it
to Paul [Julia’s husband]. I had been making fish prints in the Japanese manner
that summer, using my regular Winsor and Newton watercolors, so I had all the
equipment to make one [fish print] of the bluefish. I cleaned and dried the
exterior of the fish and laid it on a flat surface. I covered it with Payne’s
Grey [paint color] using my 2” flat brush. Then I placed a sheet of rice paper
over the fish and carefully rubbed it to get all the details of the fish
including the fins and tail. I carefully lifted the paper off to have a nice
clean image of the fish.
“Our dining room table was made
of Cypress wood and through the years of being scrubbed it had a nice raised
grain. Paul said, ‘Why not make the fish look as though it were in water by
making a rubbing of the grain in greens and blues with wax crayons?’ We placed
the dried print on top of the table and with a whole Caran d’Ache crayon,
stripped of its paper wrapping we lightly rubbed over the print. ‘Voila!’ said
Julia, ‘It looks alive.’”
The bluefish print.
2001.0253.0754.
“While Julia and I prepared the
fish in her new way, Paul and Herbert set the table and chose the white wine
for lunch. The new way was: Place the cleaned but not scaled fish on a baking
sheet. Oil the fish. Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 20–25 minutes. Skin
the fish and place the cooked fish on a platter to serve.
“Licking our chops in delightful
anticipation, we sat at the table with a wide view of the sea from which the
fish came. Julia served our plates and just before taking the first bite, we
raised our glasses in joy. We all took our first bite and, to our horror and
dismay, the fish was tough as leather. It was basically inedible! We were
utterly disappointed, as we had thought what perfection it would be to have a
spanking fresh fish. We had no idea what was wrong.
“At eight o’clock one morning 10
years later, Julia called me. ‘Pat, Pat,’ she said, ‘I just found out why our
bluefish was so tough. I’ve just been talking to John, in Seattle, who deals
with all sorts of fish big time at the fish pier. . . . He said it is very
important that fish be out of rigor mortis when you cook it, otherwise it will
be ‘tough as leather,’ it may be a matter of days for big fish like salmon and
tuna.’ Julia was a bird dog in always wanting to find answers to questions and
problems. This time, it took 10 years!"
Unsure what to make of this, I
consulted an article on rigor mortis in fish, which suggests that if Julia and Pat
had put the fish back on ice and waited a few hours, it would have passed
through rigor, at which point the muscles would have softened again and the
fish would have been edible when cooked.
The Rock Cod
This 25.5” x 17.7” fish print is
more straightforward because it is signed by Paul Child, an artist in his own
right. While we do not know the exact date for Paul’s fish print, we know that
he used the same techniques described by Mrs. Pratt. She speculates that Paul
made the wavy water by hand “as he was not near our dining room table for the
raised grain.” The rock cod print hangs above the refrigerator and is a bit
more difficult to see; a menagerie of ceramic and wooden cats, chickens, and
miscellaneous kitchenware partially obscure the view of the print.
The rock cod fish print.
2001.0253.0747.
The lesson of the fish prints
meshes with Julia’s attitude toward cooking: never stop asking questions
because you might learn something new!
You can read more about Julia’s
kitchen and recipes on our blog!
Paula Johnson is a curator in the
Division of Work and Industry. She has also blogged about cooking with Julia
Child in Washington, D.C.
John Tuohy's MY WRITERS SITE: Happiness ...................
John Tuohy's MY WRITERS SITE: Happiness ...................: ABOUT THE AUTHOR John William Tuohy is a writer who lives in Washington DC. He holds an MFA in writing from Lindenwood Unive...
Paint and Switch? Did Alec Baldwin Pay $190,000 for the Wrong Picture?
The Ross Bleckner Sea and Mirror at Alec Baldwin’s Manhattan office. CreditSantiago Mejia The New York Times
By GRAHAM BOWLEY
Ten years or so ago, as the actorAlec Baldwin remembers it, the
gallery owner Mary Boone sent him an invitation to a show of work by the
painter Ross Bleckner, an artist whom she represented and he had befriended.
The card featured a reproduction of Mr. Bleckner’s “Sea and Mirror,”
a work from 1996, when the artist was at the height of his popularity.
So began Mr. Baldwin’s love affair with the painting — an
infatuation that has ended with Mr. Baldwin, who occupies a central role in New
York’s cultural life, now pitted in a bitter dispute with two formidable
players in the city’s rarefied world of art and money — Ms. Boone, a prominent
art dealer, and Mr. Bleckner, one of her notable talents.
This has, to say the least, become awkward.
For years, Mr. Baldwin said he carried the image of “Sea and
Mirror” in his shoulder bag, alongside a picture of one of his daughters and
his father. In 2010, he asked Ms. Boone to find the collector who owned it and
pry it away.
“There was a kind of beauty and simplicity” to the work, Mr.
Baldwin recalled in an interview this month.
Happily, she reported back, the collector would sell — but at a
premium.
Mr. Baldwin put up the $190,000.
“I love this thing so much,” he said in a 2012 speech about
support for the arts at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, proudly
recounting his quest. “Three months later it was hanging in my house, in my
apartment in New York.”
But Mr. Baldwin said that something about the painting always
gave him unease. The colors weren’t quite the same. It smelled, somehow, new.
In fact, he said, just a few months ago he discovered that he had not bought
the painting he pined for. Instead, he said, for reasons that remain disputed,
Ms. Boone sent him another version of the painting. He claims she passed it off
as the original.
“I thought she had made my dream come true,” Mr. Baldwin said.
Instead, he said he believed that Ms. Boone, frustrated that the collector
would not agree to sell, persuaded Mr. Bleckner to take an unfinished work from
the same series, finish painting it and sell it to him without saying a word.
Mr. Bleckner’s office said he could not be reached for comment.
Ms. Boone, through her lawyer, disputed Mr. Baldwin’s account, asserting he was
never misled about the identity of the work.
“He’s wrong that the painting is a copy; it’s an original and
very fine work of art by Ross Bleckner,” Ms. Boone’s lawyer, Ted Poretz, said
in a statement.
Mr. Baldwin, however, has emails that buttress parts of his
account. The Boone gallery also stamped a number — 7449 — on the back of the
painting it sold to Mr. Baldwin, the same number it had listed next to the work
it had said it was pursuing from the collector.
Mr. Baldwin said he met with the Manhattan district attorney’s
office this summer but was told that a criminal case could not be made.
Ms. Boone’s lawyer declined to address in full the issues raised
by the emails or the number next to the painting.
“The gallery never likes to have unhappy clients,” Mr. Poretz
said in his statement, “and it has turned cartwheels to try to satisfy Alec
Baldwin. It has repeatedly offered Alec Baldwin a full refund, among other
things.”
The interaction is hardly the first to end badly in an opaque,
largely unregulated art market. It raises questions about why works created in
one era by an artist, operating under one set of motivations, are sometimes
different in value and reputation, compared with works that were perhaps
created by the same artist in another era.
But to Mr. Baldwin, the concerns are not nearly so esoteric: He
contends he was betrayed.
“Ross was a kind of friend of mine,” Mr. Baldwin said.
He continues to be a Bleckner supporter. Mr. Baldwin’s
foundation helped to underwrite an exhibition this month on Long Island that
featured Mr. Bleckner’s paintings. He owns five of Mr. Bleckner’s works.
Mr. Baldwin said that the flamboyant, outspoken Ms. Boone, from
whom he sometimes bought art, admitted this year that she had switched the
works.
“She said, ‘I didn’t want to disappoint you,’” he said.
Mr. Baldwin, who met Mr. Bleckner at parties in the Hamptons,
where the actor owns a home, became an admirer of his work in the 1990s. Mr.
Bleckner, who had a Guggenheim retrospective in 1995 at 45, had been an
ascendant art star of the 1980s. He belonged to a stable of young artists who
helped Ms. Boone build her reputation in the ’80s, though two of her stars from
that time, Eric Fischl and David Salle, have since left for rival dealers.
Mr. Baldwin bought his first Bleckner from Ms. Boone in 2010,
and during that transaction mentioned that he really wanted “Sea and Mirror.”
The painting had sold at auction at Sotheby’s in 2007 for
$121,000. Ms. Boone told Mr. Baldwin in an email that the collector now sought
$175,000 for it.
“The Gallery normally charges ten to twenty percent for this
kind of transaction,” she wrote. “To make this a friendly deal, we would charge
you even less — $190,000,” before adding, “I know Ross is so thrilled for you
to have a painting and so am I.”
Mr. Poretz said that shortly afterward Mr. Baldwin was told that,
in fact, he was getting a different version of “Sea and Mirror.”
“By the time Alec Baldwin paid for the painting and it was
delivered to him, he should not have misunderstood what he purchased,” Mr.
Poretz said in his statement.
Mr. Baldwin denies he was ever told he would be receiving a
different work. He said that when he received the canvas, he noticed the
composition lacked a feathery quality in the brush strokes he had admired in
the photos of the work sold at Sotheby’s, and seemed brighter.
Ms. Boone told him, he said, that it had been newly cleaned as a
courtesy.
This year, his suspicions growing, he sent emails to Mr.
Bleckner and Ms. Boone inquiring about the collector from whom he had bought
the painting and about the cleaning.
According to copies of the emails, Mr. Bleckner responded that
he did not know the name of the collector. Mr. Baldwin says Mr. Bleckner did
not point out that that transaction had never gone through. Mr. Bleckner also
discussed how he might have done the cleaning.
“I would usually do
that,” he wrote to Mr. Baldwin, “although I don’t actually remember.”
Mr. Baldwin finally had a Sotheby’s expert compare his painting
to a catalog image from the 2007 auction.
The expert said, “This is not that painting,” Mr. Baldwin
recalled.
He then confronted Ms. Boone and Mr. Bleckner. He said they
acknowledged having given him another work. Mr. Baldwin has an email in which
Mr. Bleckner is deeply apologetic but does not directly address about what.
“im so sorry about all of this,” he wrote. “I feel so bad about
this … what can I do to make this up to you?”
He said Mr. Bleckner told him that he had started the painting
in 1996 and finished it in 2010, though he had dated it 1996.
“I don’t know what Ross knew,” Mr. Baldwin said. “Ross may have
been instructed to make a copy. I don’t know.”
This summer, as Mr. Baldwin complained to Ms. Boone, he gave her
an ultimatum.
“Deliver to me the painting that I bought. The one you sold me,”
he wrote in an email.
Ms. Boone again asked Sotheby’s to contact the owner of the
painting sold at auction in 2007, according to an email supplied by Mr.
Baldwin. The collector, whose identity remains a mystery, was still not
interested in selling.
Ms. Boone’s lawyer, Mr. Poretz, also contacted Mr. Baldwin to
try to settle the matter.
In an interview, Mr. Baldwin acknowledged that the work he has
was created by Mr. Bleckner and that it looks quite similar to the painting he
coveted. But he said it was not the work he had fallen in love with — not a
painting, in his view, created when the artist was at the peak of his fame.
Still, he told Ms. Boone in a recent email, he did not want to
hurt Mr. Bleckner. “I’m less worried about you, Mary,” he wrote, “as you are
more of an armadillo and I’m sure you have been blasting your way out of
corners like this on more than one occasion.”
Ms. Boone wrote back to say that she was working to get him the
work he wanted.
“I am not an Armadillo however,” she added.
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