Authors: Ken Perenyi
Another item on my agenda was a more long-term project. I was intrigued with the idea of expressing myself through an alter ego and inventing an entirely “new” and up to this point undiscovered early-nineteenth-century artist and establishing a market for his works, a market that I would control. The idea came to me while I was knocking off paintings by Giovanni Panini and Hubert Robert, two of the greatest decorative painters of the eighteenth century. They specialized in the capriccioâbeautiful, romantic, and sometimes fantastical paintings of Italian ruins. They sold their paintings to wealthy English aristocrats visiting Rome on the Grand Tour. Many of their paintings still hang on the walls of the treasure-houses built by their wealthy patrons in the West Country of England, where I first saw them. I very much revered these artists and was training myself in their technique. I was particularly fascinated with the exquisite way they painted stonework, which figures prominently in their paintings, be it in the form of ancient temples, sculpture, or artifacts lying about.
As I was learning to think and see things in stone, the idea came to me: Why not paint an ancient Roman marble bust of a senator in trompe l'oeil style, illuminated against a dark backdrop? Instantly I saw one in my mind's eye. Yeah, I thought, I'll bet the English tourists would have bought them too.
I was very excited about the project, and on my next trip to London I combed through all my usual print shops and assembled a collection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century engravings of Roman busts, many of which were of obscure personagesâknown perhaps only by scholars. What better examples, I reasoned, as plausible models for my paintings? The next step was to visit the British Museum to study actual examples and fix in my memory all the details such as color, patina, and the play of light on the ancient stone. From there, I headed to Oxford and spent a couple of days visiting the Ashmolean Museum, founded by the Ashmole family, British aristocrats who not only amassed one of the greatest collections of ancient Roman sculpture, but owned paintings by Giovanni Panini as well.
Back in Florida, using the engravings as models and what I'd observed in the museums as an aesthetic guide, I created a collection of prototypes. Instead of a portrait painted to appear as flesh, I painted a portrait that appeared to be a marble bust of a person mounted on a pedestal so real that it seemed one could reach out and touch it. And the painting looked in every way early nineteenth century. All it took was aging each painting and setting into a period frame to complete, in more ways than one, the illusion.
I remembered reading how an observant art dealer had strung together a number of unattributed primitive portraits that had been published in catalogs and sold in various sales at different times and places. He had been convinced that he'd identified the work of an important yet hitherto unidentified eighteenth-century artist. Keeping that story in mind, the next step in my plan was to begin a program of strategically placing examples of my “mystery artist” into the art market, where they could eventually catch the attention of a sharp-eyed collector-scholar.
Using a pseudonym, I planned to be the scholar who made the discovery. Situations like this are perfectly plausible and, like finding a Heade in Britain, happen all the time in the art world. Art journals and magazines are always interested in publishing exciting new discoveries. The uniqueness of the subject matter and the quality of the paintings would certainly make it a fascinating find, sure to get published in New York or London. Such an article would naturally result in an appreciating market for the artist's work. After all, once he'd been discovered and identified, it was only logical that other examples of his work that had been lying around in attics would be brought to market in sort of a Rip van Winkle effect. For me, it couldn't be simpler. All I'd have to do was paint them, “discover” them, and feed them into the market. And what better place, I reasoned, to start the ball rolling than Sotheby's?
Back in London, I was elated when the expert at Sotheby's thought the painting “most interesting” and said he would be delighted to include it in the next sale as a “French nineteenth-century trompe l'oeil painting of a Roman bust.”
A few months later, I shipped a magnificent pair of paintings, measuring twenty-five by thirty inches each, in matching Empire frames, to Butterfield & Butterfield in San Francisco, the West Coast's leading auction house. With three paintings in the pipeline and set to be published in catalogs and two more that I casually sold at antique markets in New York and London to float around, I stopped there and planned to feed a few more into the market in about a year.
Painting pictures had totally consumed my life. I lived to paint. The more pictures I turned out, the better they became, and that just inspired me to paint more. I lived in a perpetual pursuit of another subject. Indeed, I had trouble falling asleep at night in anticipation of starting another picture in the morning.
One day while I was hunting for antique paintings in some Florida junk shops, I stumbled across a perfect situation to exploit. As I was paying the proprietor for a hideous nineteenth-century painting depicting Joan of Arc slaying a dragon, I noticed a pile of free promotional magazines on the counter. As I flipped through it, an unusual portrait of an American Indian caught my eye. The painting was part of a collection of local interest that would be going on display in a number of museums in Florida.
The portrait was of Osceola, a leader of the Seminole tribe in the nineteenth century. He was magnificently portayed in an embroidered robe with silver ornaments displayed on his chest. On his head was a colorful bandanna with a great plume protruding from it. I was fascinated at once and read the short history of the painting.
The portrait was painted by a little-known artist named Robert Curtis who had lived and worked in Charleston, SC in the 1830s. The story went on to explain that Osceola had found himself imprisoned in Fort Moultrie in 1838. When Robert Curtis heard about the famous Indian leader's imprisonment, he went over to the fort and painted a stunning portrait of him. No doubt it was the best thing he ever did, and the portrait attracted much attention. But it was the next line in the story that really got my attention. It stated that Curtis put an advertisement in the
Charleston Chronicle
offering to make copies of the portrait for $2.50 each. The portrait in the current exhibition was in fact one of the copies; the original, as the article stated, was in the Charleston Museum.
So 156 years after Osceola's death, I got in my car and made the trip to Fort Moultrie. But all I could do was visit Osceola's grave and take in the view of the original portrait painted by Curtis.
I was deeply impressed when I saw the painting in the Charleston Museum. It was far superior to the copy displayed in the exhibition in Florida. Osceola, a warrior who was never beaten in a fair fight, looks out proudly, arrayed in all his splendor. There was a certain majesty to the portrait, and I knew at once that I wanted to paint one just like it.
My curiosity piqued, I decided I would find out more about the life of Osceola before I attempted to paint him. In 1835, the US government decided that the Seminole Indians living in Florida were an inconvenience. The fact that the Seminoles had been there first and that it was their land meant nothing to the government, which demanded that they remove themselves to a designated territory west of the Mississippi.
The problem was exacerbated by the Seminoles' habit of taking in runaway slaves. By the mid-1830s, many of the slaves had integrated into the tribe, taking wives and raising families. Andrew Jackson would have none of it and demanded that the slaves be returned to their masters. The Seminoles had no intention of complying with the order. In 1835, Jackson sent the army down to take care of the matter. Osceola, the acknowledged leader of the Seminoles, was a courageous warrior with a charismatic personality, a master of battlefield techniques and guerrilla warfare. When Jackson's army arrived in 1835, he wiped them out. Thus began the Seminole Wars.
Jackson sent down more troops, but the result was always the same. The army was simply no match for Osceola and his braves, who attacked at night and hid in the swamps by day. Osceola, besides being a legend among his own people, was now becoming a legend in Washington as well. The government decided that a new approach had to be taken.
General Thomas S. Jesup was dispatched with orders to call a truce and discuss a treaty. In 1837, Osceola, under a flag of truce, met with General Jesup at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina. But in one of the most disgraceful acts of treachery in US history, instead of sitting down to peace talks with the Seminole leader, Jesup had Osceola arrested and thrown into prison.
The Indians, who had a high sense of honor and had trusted the word of a US Army general, were shocked. Many Americans were also outraged at Jesup's betrayal and sympathized with Osceola. Soon, artists began journeying to Fort Moultrie to paint Osceola's portrait. Even George Catlin interrupted his work out west to come and paint the great warrior. How humiliated and envious Jesup must have felt, I thought, that artists came to paint his captive and ignored him. Unfortunately, Osceola died from malaria just three months after being imprisoned. He was buried outside the walls of the fort.
General Jesup went down in history as a disgrace to his uniform and his country, but Osceola was honored, having towns, counties, streets, and schools named after him.
Now that I knew the story of this remarkable man, I no longer viewed the project in the same way. Instead of seeing another situation to exploit, I wanted to paint Osceola again in all his glory as a tribute to one of history's great freedom fighters.
Back in Florida, I developed the photos I'd taken of the portrait and went to work. Ten days later, I had two copies of the original, both executed on early-nineteenth-century canvases measuring the standard twenty-five-by-thirty-inch portrait size. To honor Osceola's memory, I decided to fit him out in one of the finest portrait frames I had in my collection, one I had found at a shop in Cirencester years before and had been saving for a special picture. As a final tribute, I felt it only fitting to take the painting to Washington, DC, where I was sure Osceola would appreciate having his famous portrait sold.
Adam Weschler & Son is DC's oldest auction house and is close to Capitol Hill. In order to save me the trouble of lugging the painting and its heavy gilt frame into the auction house, the expert in charge, a pretty twenty-something-year-old, insisted on coming out to my car. Together, we slid the painting out the back door and propped it, right out on the sidewalk, against the front of the building. The sight of such an interesting portrait decked out in a dazzling gold frame soon attracted a crowd of passersby to witness the valuation. Ironically, while this was going on, I looked up and noticed that several people were looking down at the spectacle from an office window at the FBI headquarters just across the street. Weschler's expert wasn't so impressed with Osceola, but she did concede that the frame had some value. Then, after puzzling over the picture for a while, she asked: “Would you be happy if we could get you twelve hundred bucks?”
“Sure!” I replied, and a contract was written up on the spot. A porter was called out to remove the portrait. I caught sight of Osceola's gaze one last time as the doors of a freight elevator closedâand he was gone forever.
Still, no matter how many paintings I produced, no matter how many paintings I sold, and no matter how much money I made, there was a big empty space in my life, some unfinished business that someday would have to be addressed. Perhaps, I thought, now that I had the time and freedomânot to mention an extra seventy-five grand in the bank compliments of my old friend OsceolaâI could once again start my work on the lost collection that I had begun in the loft at Union Square and fulfill my lifelong ambition to become an artist.
The idea took hold, and I felt inspired, driven, and excited. I could hardly sleep at night from nervous energy and the desire to start immediately. Again I felt like a new person, reborn into another life with yet another future. I could build the collection. I had friends in New York. And I could finally have a show.
For this project, I wanted to be completely undisturbed. I unplugged the phones and was incommunicado for weeks on end. It was a tremendous job just to assemble the paints, brushes, canvas, and stretchers, not to mention the fabrication of the Plexiglas and sheet-metal boxes.
At last, when I was ready to paint, I experienced a strange sensation: I picked up right where I'd left off, as though there had only been a snap of the fingers since Union Square and everything in between had never happened. As the collection took form, it looked just as I'd always envisioned it and just like those pieces that had last been seen being taken from the Fergusen Club. Months went by and the collection kept developing. But now, instead of surviving on bagels and hamburgers, I ended my day with a fat steak on the grill, a glass of wine, and a long walk on the beach.
After thirty years of painting pictures and selling them in New York and London, and after thirty years of conditioning myself to forget the fact that I'd painted them, I'd come to believe that my business in the auction world was just as legitimate as anyone else's. So when, one day in the spring of 1998, Special Agent Monty Montgomery (for real) and his sidekick from the FBI showed up at my door, my immediate reaction was: Whatever could they possibly want with me? However, after Agent Montgomery stuck his shiny badge in my face and said he would like to talk to me about some paintings, it occurred to me what this might be about.
“Don't worry,” he said, after noticing the blank expression of shock on my face, “you're not in any trouble. We just have a few questions and we'll be gone.” he assured me as we sat in my living room. Yeah, right! I thought.