The Modigliani Scandal (1976)

by Ken Follett

  Peter threw up his hands. ″Oh, come on, Julian, you can′t turn me down! I′d be a scoop for you.″

  Julian put his hands on Peter′s shoulders. ″Let me explain something to you, old mate. I had twenty thousand pounds to start this gallery. You know how much I′ve spent already? Nineteen thousand. You know how many pictures I′ve bought with that? None.″

  ″What′s it all gone on?″

  ″Advance rent, furniture, decoration, staff, deposits on this, deposits on that, publicity. This is a hard business to get into, Pete. Now if I were to take you on, I′d have to give you decent space—not just because we′re friends, but also because otherwise it would get around that I was selling you short, and that would harm my reputation—you know what an incestuous little circle this is.″

  ″I know.″

  ″But your work isn′t selling. Pete, I can′t afford to use precious wall space for work I can′t sell. In the first six months of this year four London galleries went bankrupt. I could so easily go that way.″

  Peter nodded slowly. He felt no anger. Julian was not one of the fat parasites of the art world—he was at the bottom of the pile, along with the artists.

  There was no more to be said. Peter walked slowly to the door. As he opened it Julian called out: ″I′m sorry.″

  Peter nodded again, and walked out.

  He sat on a stool in the classroom at seven-thirty, while the pupils filed in. He had not known, when he took on the job of teaching art classes in the local polytechnic, how grateful he would one day be for the £20 a week it brought in. The teaching was a bore, and there was never more than one youngster in each class with even a glimmering of talent; but the money paid the mortgage and the grocery bill, just.

  He sat silent as they settled behind their easels, wait ing for him to give the go-ahead or to begin a lecture. He had had a couple of drinks on the way: the expenditure of a few shillings seemed trivial compared with the disaster which had overtaken his career.

  He was a successful teacher, he knew: the pupils liked his obvious enthusiasm and his blunt, sometimes cruel assessments of their work. And he could improve their work, even the ones with no talent; he could show them tricks and point out technical faults, and he had a way of making them remember.

  Half of them wanted to go in for Fine Art qualifications, the fools. Somebody ought to tell them they were wasting their time—they should make painting their hobby, and enjoy it all their lives while working as bank clerks and computer programmers.

  Hell, somebody ought to tell them.

  They were all here. He stood up.

  ″Tonight we are going to talk about the art world,″ he said. ″I expect some of you hope to become part of that world before too long.″ There were one or two nods around the room.

  ″Well, for those who do, here′s the best piece of advice anyone can give you. Forget it.

  ″Let me tell you about it. A couple of months ago eight paintings were sold in London for a total of four hundred thousand pounds. Two of those painters died in poverty. You know how it works? When an artist is alive, he dedicates himself to art, pouring his life′s blood out on the canvas.″ Peter nodded wryly. ″Melodramatic, isn′t it? But it′s true. You see, all he really cares about is painting. But the fat guys, the rich guys, the society women, the dealers, and the collectors looking for investments and tax losses—they don′t like his work. They want something safe and familiar, and besides, they know nothing—sweet FA—about art. So they don′t buy, and the painter dies young. Then, in a few years′ time, one or two perceptive people begin to see what he was getting at, and they buy his pictures—from friends he gave them to, from junk shops, from fly-blown art galleries in Bournemouth and Watford. The price rises, and dealers start buying the pictures. Suddenly the artist becomes (a) fashionable and (b) a good investment. His paintings fetch astronomical prices—fifty thousand, two hundred thousand, you name it. Who makes the money? The dealers, the shrewd investors, the people who had enough taste to buy the pictures before they became trendy. And the auctioneers, and their staff, and the salesroom, and their secretaries. Everybody but the artist—because he′s dead. Meanwhile, today′s young artists are struggling to keep body and soul together. In the future, their pictures will sell for astronomical sums—but that′s no good to them now.

  ″You might think the Government would take a cut on these big art deals, and use it to build low-rent studios. But no. The artist is the loser, always.

  ″Let me tell you about me. I was somewhat exceptional—my work started to sell well during my lifetime. I took out a mortgage and fathered a child on the strength of it. I was England′s up-and-coming painter. But things went wrong. I was ′overpriced,′ they say. I went out of fashion. My manners don′t quite fit in with polite society. Suddenly, I′m desperately poor. I′m on the scrap heap. Oh, I′ve still got enormous talent, they say. In ten years′ time I′ll be at the top. But meanwhile, I can starve, or dig ditches, or rob banks. They don′t care—you see—″ He paused, and realized for the first time how long he had been speaking, and how engrossed he had been in his own words. The classroom was completely silent in the presence of such fury, such passion, and such a naked confession.

  ″You see,″ he said finally, ″the last thing they care about is the man who actually uses his God-given gift to produce the miracle of a painting—the artist.″

  He sat down on the stool then, and looked at the desk in front of him. It was an old school desk with initials carved in the woodwork, and ancient ink stains soaked into its wood. He looked at the grain, noticing how it flowed like an op-art painting.

  The pupils seemed to realize that the class was over. One by one they got up, put their things together, and left. In five minutes the room was empty but for Peter, who laid his head on the desk and closed his eyes.

  It was dark when he got home to the small terraced house in Clapham. It had been difficult to get a mortgage on the place, cheap as it was, because of its age. But they had managed it.

  Peter had turned handyman and created a studio out of the upper floor, knocking down internal walls and making a skylight. The three of them slept in the bedroom downstairs, leaving one living room and the kitchen, bathroom and toilet in an extension at the back.

  He went into the kitchen and kissed Anne. ″I relieved my feelings by shouting at the kids, I′m afraid,″ he said.

  ″Never mind,″ she smiled. ″Mad Mitch has come to cheer you up. He′s in the studio. I′m just making some sandwiches for us.″

  Peter went up the stairs. Mad Mitch was Arthur Mitchell, who had studied with Peter at the Slade. He had become a teacher, refusing to go into the risky, commercial business of being a full-time artist. He shared Peter′s utter contempt for the art world and its pretensions.

  He was looking at a recently finished canvas when Peter walked in.

  ″What do you think of it?″ Peter said.

  ″Bad question,″ Mitch replied. ″It invites me to pour out a load of bullshit about movement, brush-work, design, and emotion. Better to ask whether I would hang it on my wall.″

  ″Would you hang it on your wall?″

  ″No. It would clash with the three-piece suite.″

  Peter laughed. ″Are you going to open that bottle of scotch you brought with you?″

  ″Sure. Let′s have a wake.″

  ″Anne told you?″

  ″She did. You′ve discovered for yourself what I warned you of years ago. Still, there′s nothing like finding out on your own account.″

  ″I′ll say.″ Peter fetched two grubby glasses from a shelf, and Mitch poured whisky. They put on a Hendrix record, and listened to the fireworks from the guitar in silence for a while. Anne brought cheese sandwiches, and the three of them proceeded to get drunk.

  ″The worst of it,″ Mitch was saying, ″the kernel, as it were, of the shit, as it is—″

  Peter and Anne laughed at the mixed metaphor. ″Go on,″ Peter said.

  �
�The fundamental piece of godawful bollocks, is the uniqueness of a work. Very few paintings are unique in any meaningful sense. Unless there′s something very tricky about it—like the Mona Lisa smile, to take the outstanding example—then it can be repeated.″

  ″Not exactly,″ Peter put in.

  ″Exactly where it matters. A few millimeters of space, a difference in color which is only just noticeable—these things don′t matter with your average fifty-thousand-pound painting. My God, Manet didn′t paint an exact replica of an ideal picture in his head—he just put the paint roughly where he thought it ought to go. He just mixed the color until it seemed about right.

  ″Take the Virgin of the Rocks. There′s one in the Louvre, one in the National Gallery. Everybody agrees that one of them is a fake—but which? The Louvre′s, say the London experts. The National Gallery′s, say the French. We′ll never know—but who cares? You just have to look at them to see their greatness. Yet if somebody found out for certain that one was a fake, nobody would go to see it anymore. Bullshit.″

  He drank from his glass, and poured more whisky. Anne said: ″I don′t believe you. It would take almost as much genius to copy a great painting, and get it right, as it would to paint it in the first place.″

  ″Rubbish!″ Mitch exploded. Iʹll prove it. Gimme a canvas, and I′ll paint you a van Gogh in twenty minutes.″

  ″He′s right,″ Peter said. ″I could do it, too.″

  ″But not as fast as me,″ said Mitch.

  ″Faster.″

  ″Right,″ said Mitch. He got to his feet. ʺWeʹll have a Masterpiece Race.″

  Peter jumped up. ″You′re on. Now—two sheets of paper-we can′t waste canvas.″

  Anne laughed. ″You′re both mad.″

  Mitch pinned the two bits of paper on the wall while Peter got two palettes out.

  Mitch said: ″Name a painter, Anne.″

  ″All right—van Gogh.″

  ″Give us a name for the picture.″

  ″Umm—The Gravedigger.″

  ″Now say ready, steady, go.″

  ″Ready, steady, go.″

  The two began painting furiously. Peter outlined a man leaning on a shovel, dabbed in some grass at his feet, and started to give the man overalls. Mitch began with a face: the lined, weary face of an old peasant. Anne watched with amazement as the two pictures took shape.

  They both took longer than twenty minutes. They became absorbed in their work, and at one point Peter walked to the bookshelf and opened a book at a color plate.

  Mitch′s gravedigger was exerting himself, pressing the shovel into the hard earth with his foot, his bulky, graceless body bent over. He spent several minutes looking at the paper, adding touches, and looking again.

  Peter began to paint something small in black at the bottom of his sheet. Suddenly Mitch yelled: ″Finished!″

  Peter looked at Mitch′s work. ″Swine,″ he said. Then he looked again. ″No, you haven′t—no signature. Ha-hah!″

  ″Balls!″ Mitch bent over the picture and started to sign it. Peter finished his signature. Anne laughed at the pair of them.

  They both stepped back at once. ″I won!″ they shouted in unison, and both burst out laughing.

  Anne clapped her hands. ″Well,″ she said. ″If we ever hit the breadline, that′s one way you could make a crust.″

  Peter was still laughing. ″That′s an idea,″ he roared. He and Mitch looked at one another. Their smiles slowly, comically, collapsed, and they stared at the paintings on the wall.

  Peter′s voice was low, cold, and serious. ″Jesus Christ Almighty,″ he said. ″That′s an idea.″

  IV

  JULIAN BLACK WAS A little nervous as he walked into the entrance of the newspaper office. He got nervous a lot these days: over the gallery, the money, Sarah, and his in-laws. Which were really one and the same problem.

  The marbled hall was rather grand, with a high ceiling, polished brass here and there, and frescoed walls. Somehow he had expected a newspaper office to be scruffy and busy, but this place looked like the lobby of a period brothel.

  A gold-lettered signboard beside the ironwork elevator shaft told visitors what was to be found on each floor. The building housed a morning and evening paper as well as a clutch of magazines and journals.

  ″Can I help you, sir?″ Julian turned to see a uniformed commissionaire at his shoulder.

  ″Perhaps,″ Julian said. ″I′d like to see Mr. Jack Best.″

  ″Would you fill in one of our forms, please?″

  Puzzled, Julian followed the man to a desk on one side of the foyer. He was handed a little green slip of paper with spaces for his name, the person he wanted to see, and his business. This kind of screening process was probably necessary, he thought charitably as he filled out the form with the gold Parker in his pocket. They must get a lot of screwballs coming along to a newspaper office.

  It also made you feel rather privileged to be allowed to speak to the journalists, he thought. While he waited for the message to be taken to Best, he wondered about the wisdom of coming in person. It might have been as well just to send out press releases. He smoothed his hair and straightened his jacket nervously.

  There had been a time when nothing made him nervous. That was many years ago. He had been a champion schoolboy distance runner, head prefect, leader of the debating team. It seemed he could do nothing but win. Then he had taken up art. For the umpteenth time, he traced his troubles back to that crazy, irrational decision. Since then he had done nothing but lose. The only prize he had won was Sarah, and she had turned out to be a phony kind of victory. Her and her gold Parkers, he thought. He realized he was clicking the button of the ballpoint compulsively, and stuffed it back into his jacket pocket with an exasperated sigh. Her gold everything, and her Mercedes, and her gowns, and her bloody father.

  A pair of scuffed, worn-down Hush Puppies appeared on the marble steps and began to shuffle down. Creaseless brown cavalry twills followed, and a nicotine-stained hand slid along the brass banister. The man who came into sight was thin and looked rather impatient. He glanced at a green slip in his hand as he approached Julian.

  ″Mr. Black?″ he said.

  Julian stuck out his hand. ″How do you do, Mr. Best.″

  Best put a hand to his face and brushed a long lock of black hair off his face. ″What can I do for you?″ he said.

  Julian looked around. Clearly he was not going to be invited up to Best′s office, or even asked to sit down. He plowed on determinedly.

  ″I′m opening a new gallery on the King′s Road shortly,″ he said. ″Naturally, as art critic of the London Magazine you′ll be invited to the reception, but I wondered if I might have a chat with you about the aims of the gallery.″

  Best nodded noncommittally. Julian paused, to give the man a chance to ask him up to the office. Best remained silent.

  ″Well,″ Julian went on, ″the idea is not to get involved with a particular school or artistic group, but to keep the walls free for all kinds of fringe movements—the kind of thing that′s too way-out for the existing galleries. Young artists, with radical new ideas.″ Julian could see that Best was already getting bored.

  ″Look, let me buy you a drink, would you?″

  Best looked at his watch. ″They′re closed,″ he said.

  ″Well, um, how about a cup of coffee?″

  He looked at his watch again. ″Actually, I think the best plan would be for us to have a chat when you actually open. Why don′t you send me that invitation, and a press release about yourself, and then well see if we can′t get together later on.″

  ″Oh. Well, all right then,″ Julian said. He was nonplussed.

  Best shook hands. ″Thanks for coming in,″ he said.

  ″Sure.″ Julian turned away and left.

  He walked along the narrow street toward Fleet Street, wondering what he had done wrong. Clearly he would have to think again about his plan of calling on all the London art critics per
sonally. He would write, perhaps, and send a little essay on the thinking behind the Black Gallery. They would all come to the reception—there was free booze at that, and they would know their pals would be there.

  God, he hoped they would come to the reception. What a disaster it would be if they did not turn up.

  He could not understand how Best could be so blase. It wasn′t every week, or even every month, that a new art gallery opened in London. Of course, the critics had to go to a lot of shows, and most of them only had a few inches of space every week. Still, you would think they would at least give the place a once-over. Maybe Best was a bad one. The worst, hopefully. He grinned, then shuddered, at his unconscious pun.

  Nothing turned to gold anymore. He went back in his mind to the time when he had begun to lose his touch. Deep in thought, he joined a bus queue and stood at the curb with his arms folded.

  He had been at art school, where he had found that everyone else was just as good as he at putting on that ultracool, throwaway hip style which had stood him in such good stead for the last couple of years at public school. All the art students knew about Muddy Waters and Allen Ginsberg, Kierkegaard and amphetamines, Vietnam and Chairman Mao. Worse, they could all paint—but Julian couldn′t.

  Suddenly he had neither style nor talent. Yet he persisted, and even passed exams. It had done him little good. He had seen really talented people, like Peter Usher, go on to the Slade or wherever, while he had to scrabble around for jobs.

  The bus queue moved convulsively, and Julian looked up to see the bus he wanted waiting at the stop. He jumped on and went upstairs.

  He had actually been working when he met Sarah. An old school-friend who had gone into publishing had offered him the job of illustrating a children′s novel. The money from the advance had enabled him to kid Sarah he had been a successful artist. By the time she found out the truth it was too late for her—and for her father.

  The winning of Sarah had made him think, for a little while, that he had got his old touch back. Then it had turned sour. Julian got off the bus, hoping she would not be at home.