by Tom Rachman
Regards,
Charles
Connor Thomas
Charles,
I still love Bear. Just not sold on these . . .
—CT
Pinch rereads that reply. What is Connor implying? He’s not sold on them? He can’t be questioning the authenticity, can he? On the verge of panic, Pinch types out a response.
Charles Bavinsky
Dear Connor,
I would be most grateful to see a copy of this article in advance of submission. If there are factual errors, I can let you know.
Sincerely,
Charles
Pinch keeps checking his in-box. Later that day:
Connor Thomas
It doesn’t work that way. No peeking. Ciao.
In his room at Jing’s house, Pinch paces, shaking his head. He has lost control of this—that is what petrifies him. He digs up a phone number for the Petros Gallery, cringing at the idea—any interaction with Eva makes his skin crawl, especially when he needs her.
“So great to hear from you!” she responds, voice fading as she leans off-mike to steal a drag from her assistant’s cigarette.
Pinch responds with insincere warmth of his own before moving to his purpose. Thrilling news: Bear left behind other artworks; a series painted toward the end of his life that Pinch has recently shown for the first time.
“To another dealer?” she asks with revulsion, as if handed a sandwich of live pigeon.
“I showed Connor Thomas. That’s all.” Hesitating, he adds: “But, Eva, how do you feel about this? To know there’s another Bavinsky series around.”
“Delighted!” she says, meaning “furious,” because Pinch approached that tin-eared typist before her. “I do wish you’d let my team handle the reveal, dear! We’d generate a way bigger splash. We’ve got a publicity department for things like that!”
“But, Eva, you don’t represent the estate,” he says, softening this with: “Plus I wouldn’t want to impose on your team. I can only imagine how busy you are.”
“Next time, just call! No expectations. Even to say hi. You could never impose on me, dear.”
He bristles to be patronized as “dear,” especially by someone so much younger. But he must play along. “The reason I’m calling,” he proceeds, girding himself for this, “is that Connor has me concerned. He seemed oddly negative about these works. No idea why. I’m afraid that I made a mistake, that I should have locked them away forever.”
“Well, that is not the answer. Anything by your papa—a spitball, a paper airplane, for Christ’s sake—bedazzles me. I mean, the Life-Stills are the American masterpiece of the twentieth century.”
For the first time in weeks, he bursts out laughing. “You think that, Eva?”
“I worship the Life-Stills without equal. But I’m going to love this new series the same. How to choose? I’m Solomon now? As for Connor, screw that a-hole. Show me the stuff, not some hack. My job is to look and love. And will I ever! Truly, madly, deeply.”
How she flatters! As if vanity trumps reason. Perhaps it does with artists. In truth, her pseudo-enthusiasm boosts Pinch a little.
“Why can’t people just celebrate greatness?” she continues. “That is what’s wrong with our culture. I’m almost serious about that.”
“But if Connor is casting aspersions,” Pinch goes on, mouth dry, “then what I worry is that people might take a second look at the Life-Stills you sold on behalf of my siblings.”
“A second look?” Suddenly icy. “How?”
He clears his throat, a fake cough to buy a few seconds. “Connor won’t let me read his piece, so I have no clue. But I’m worried that his article could be pretty nasty. And if he says your gallery sold bad Bavinskys, he’s accusing you of bad judgment. Almost implying that you misled clients. That’s insane, obviously. But I know how important credibility is to your job.”
“Oh, please. I have credibility coming out of my ass.”
“I just thought you might want to check in with him,” Pinch says, feigning calm, “so he’s not saying something wildly incorrect. Or libelous. Or just stupid. He should know there are consequences.”
“What consequences do you have in mind?”
“That’s not for me to say. But if someone smears you, I imagine your friends in the art world might turn their back on that person. If his article dents the resale value of Bavinskys, that’s sure to affect you in the future. Right? Which’d be so unfair, given how much you’ve helped raise his reputation. But I’m just talking, Eva. I don’t understand that world.”
“Clearly, I need to see these late works.”
“Connor took photos.”
“Leave this with me.”
In agony, Pinch waits. No word from Eva. Nothing from Connor either. Weeks later, he calls the gallery again.
“Did Felix not email you?” Eva says. “Me and your journalist buddy chatted. He told me where his rinky-dink story is going.”
“Somewhere obscure?”
“Actually, he landed the New Yorker,” she says. “After you and me talked the other day, I got in touch with an editor friend at the mag and arranged a meeting for Connor. The two of them hit it off big time.”
“Eva! What the hell! Why did you do that? What do they have, a million readers? And why would they even publish him?”
“He’s got a scoop, wouldn’t you say?”
“What scoop? What’s he writing? Eva?”
“Patience, dear.”
72
On the day of publication, Felix phones. “Eva said to read it aloud.”
“The whole article?” Pinch snaps. “Couldn’t you summarize? I’m really on edge here.”
“Eva said read it aloud.”
“Okay, okay. But please, start.”
The feature is called “Hunting Bear,” with the subheading, “The Hidden Truth of an Artist’s Legacy.”
Pinch scarcely processes what he hears, not least because Felix reads in bewildering upspeak: “After the sexualized shoulders and legs and arms akimbo that established the Bavinsky brand, his crepuscular efforts prove more naked still? The face itself is his nude here? Eyes, stripteasing before us? We stare back?”
“Felix, are those questions in the original? Or are you just reading it like that?”
“Reading it like what?”
“Just go faster. Please.”
The prose is abysmal, the pacing turgid—it’s a personal history starring Connor Thomas, rhapsodizing about a lifelong (since Princeton) love for the works of Bear Bavinsky, then his feelings upon meeting the great man and his angst over the painter’s estrangement from contemporary art. At first Pinch is mentioned only in passing. But the article keeps circling around him. Wait for it. He shuts his eyes, hardly breathing.
“You ready?” Felix asks.
“Just get to it.”
“I’ll put you on with her now.”
“Felix! Finish reading it!”
“That was the finish.”
Eva gets on the phone. “You likey?”
“Eva?” Pinch responds. “That was nothing. That was Connor finding the paintings, like some kid detective. Which, parenthetically, is not how this happened. But nothing negative.”
“You need to trust me, dear.”
“How did you talk him around?”
“I didn’t talk anybody around. I looked at his photos, and I explained what we had here: ‘Those are fucking gorgeous, you dingbat.’ He could either see what I saw, and be at the vanguard. Or he could not see it, and be a bonehead when everyone else starts raving.”
“You liked them?” Pinch asks hungrily.
“Frickin’ gorgeous! I told that dummkopf,” she continues, “that
writing about a bunch of ‘problematic’ art or whatever he thought—that’s a nonstory. But single-handedly discovering unknown masterworks? That’ll get serious play, as I proved, putting him in touch with my girl Friday at the mag. A dumbass like Connor just needs a little steering.”
“Eva! You’re amazing.”
“Awwww,” she purrs. “Valentines right back atcha, dearie.”
“But you honestly liked them? From those photos?”
“Anyone with the slightest taste would fucking drool.”
Pinch always considered Eva’s defining trait to be insincerity. Yet now that she approves of his art, he finds ways to respect her: She’s experienced, influential—she was listed in ArtReview’s Power 100 last year, dammit! She’s an opinion maker. And I, he thinks, am a total hypocrite. But a hypocrite who can paint! He closes his eyes tight, opens them, pupils dilated. “Eva, there was this one bit in the article I didn’t get. Where he quoted you, it said the Petros Gallery represents the Bavinsky estate. Which isn’t technically true.”
“Um, seriously?” She slams on the cold again. “What have I been doing here?”
“No, right—you’ve represented us superbly. There’s nobody else I’d want to do the job.”
“Yay!” Warmth restored (and contract on the way). “Here’s what I’m thinking: these new pieces in a miniretrospective celebrating Papa Bear, tying a bow on the legendary history between our two fathers. I’m thinking the inaugural for our new art space in Bushwick, what I’m calling Petros 2.0. You psyched? And, later,” she adds, “if you care to test the market with these, that can happen. Ça va?”
They sign off, and he smacks down the phone receiver, beaming at the ceiling of his room, imagining Eva at her desk in the gallery, loathing him. Another appalling estate, she’ll think, and take it out on Felix.
73
When the Petros Gallery announces its show Bear Bavinsky: The Faces, the interns mail out embossed invitations with the artist’s initials printed back-to-back, , Intended to resemble the number 88, which is lucky in Chinese culture—Eva is looking to the Asian market these days. Her publicists seed considerable media interest, soliciting an arts-section story in the New York Times that speaks of “a first look at the long-rumored treasures by a 20th-century American master.” This prompts coverage in lesser organs: ad-heavy art mags, bankrupt big-city newspapers, dutiful wire services, snarky blogs.
Pinch arranges an advance viewing for the Bavinsky children. At Bear’s memorial, several of them spoke with dejection about how Dad never invited them to a single show or allowed them to visit any of his studios. Eleven of Bear’s children make the trip to New York, and are herded together for brief remarks from their brother before entering. “Over a lifetime of painting, Dad produced two main series, just a few dozen major works in total. That’s all, from thousands of paintings that he started, nearly all of which he destroyed,” Pinch says. “For those outside our family who care about art, the Life-Stills mean the most. But the paintings in the next room, I think you’ll find, mean something specifically for us. To each of you.” He nods from person to person.
“If the show is for us,” a sibling quips, “I assume we get to keep the paintings, right?”
Eva breaks in, promising wine and canapés, leading the Bavinsky offspring into her new postindustrial Brooklyn gallery.
Once inside, the siblings stop short. Because, on the walls, it’s them. Not thighs and throats of unknown women but Bear’s family, each member depicted in a separate portrait, their faces from years before, looking out as if at the painter himself. Birdie, Age 15 is especially upsetting. If Pinch shuts his eyes, he can hear her weeping outside the Roman studio. Inscribed in each face is harm that Bear inflicted. The series is a late message from their father: He never forgot them, no matter how it seemed; he knew that he’d wounded them. The paintings are remorse made visible.
Pinch stands there, rigid with anxiety, stuffing himself with salted peanuts from his cupped palm, flung in bunches into his mouth, as when a boy at Mishmish Shapiro’s party. He’s avoiding the sight of the portraits. (It’s difficult with eyes staring from every canvas.) Instead he watches his siblings, all of whom stand before their own image. Pinch imagines others walking around this gallery: Natalie and his grandmother Ruth, Mom with her back to him, turning, raising her eyebrows at him, smiling. He smiles back, choking up, and looks for an exit. Outside, he looks at the brick frontage of Petros 2.0, emblazoned with Murakami-inspired graffiti mural. Someone taps his shoulder.
“That stuff is by our father?” Birdie says. “For real?”
Briefly, he is caught out—then realizes she means this as awe.
“When you see what he accomplished, what he left behind,” Birdie continues, “maybe he was right how he acted. Would it be better if he’d shown up for softball games, only to die without doing what he knew, knew, would be so great? It’s bigger than us. Bigger than us, Charlie.” Moved, she sniffs.
“Happy. Just am.” He hugs her, then steps back shyly. “A rare squeeze from your little brother.”
“More of those!” she commands, wiping under her lower lids, avoiding the eyeliner. “Oh, Daddy! The art was so much better than the man.”
74
Through the coming weeks, the culture pilgrims file into the Bavinsky show, reveling in the work of a painter who is both satisfyingly obscure to the masses and pleasingly wicked in character. Nobody wants a well-behaved artist.
In a press release, the Petros Gallery declares that attendance broke all previous records. It says this of all its shows, but the claim is almost true this time. Articles about the Bavinsky revival invariably cite Connor Thomas, “who is completing the official biography of the artist.” All the publicity prompts a bidding war for his manuscript, leading to a seven-house auction and a juicy advance. He has become the definitive voice of Bavinsky studies, and uses his role to lavish praise on “the Faces,” as the late series has become known.
When Connor phones with research questions, Pinch can’t resist: “I’m so glad you came around to these paintings.”
“Ohmigod, they were always amazing. I was only absorbing how radical they were. Given his facture. You know?”
Pinch doesn’t know. But he supposes that this is how culture works: The taste-makers call something important until it becomes so, making themselves important in the process.
“This bankers’ association in Frankfurt is paying me to talk about the peacemaking powers of art, whatever that means!” Connor boasts. “Eight thousand bucks for a half-hour gabfest. And they’re flying me business.”
Neither Pinch nor Connor delves into that awkward time at the cottage. The journalist behaves as if they’re old soldiers together, while Pinch dutifully provides any answers required: Bear’s views on other painters and aesthetics generally, where he lived when producing particular works, plus Pinch’s own reminiscences, insights, speculations. When Connor shows him a draft of the manuscript, Pinch finds his own words ventriloquized throughout. There’s also plenty that he never knew.
For example, how wealthy his father’s family was. Not simply “in the furniture business,” as Bear said, but owners of the largest such enterprise in the Midwest, including factories, warehouses, distribution centers, which he left behind to pursue the life of an artist. He inherited a small fortune when his father died in 1938, which explains why Bear never fretted about making a living. “Live as if money doesn’t exist, kiddo, only choices!” Somehow Pinch hadn’t questioned how his father afforded such an expensive motto.
Connor also unearthed that old story about Bear jumping from his schoolhouse window to see if he’d fly. It seems to be true, confirmed by medical records: both legs and four vertebrae fractured, a body cast from age seven to nine. Connor excerpts a 1978 interview with Der Spiegel, in which Bear mentions undergoing numerous surgeries in childhood, stating that he still suffers intense bac
k pain at the easel and that the discomfort worsens with age; to paint has become excruciating. Regarding that childhood accident, Bear told the German magazine:
It was three stories up, and I expected the fall to last longer. If my head hit first, I would have been finished. My nurses gave me hell for picking off the dressings, but I liked seeing the scars. Later I heard that many important people spent their childhoods as invalids. Jack Kennedy, Edith Piaf, Lionel Barrymore, H. G. Wells. It’s useful to think you’re going to die. If it doesn’t wreck you, you do what you want afterward.
Also new to Pinch are stories of Bear traveling around Europe after the war. He spent a period in northern Spain, not far across the border from the cottage. During a two-year fellowship in Rome, Bear was expelled for bringing “questionable women” into a work space granted by the American Academy. In internal academy documents, Bear is recorded as describing the women as “artists’ models,” saying that if they also happened to be ladies of the night, well, there’s a rich tradition in painting women of that trade—ask Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Schiele. The administrators didn’t agree. So he took a dingy studio down the hill in the shadow of Regina Coeli prison, converting a former grain depot into his art space, later the home of his third wife and their only son, Charles.
Other biographical snippets catch Pinch’s attention too: His father was engaged in a torrid affair with Mishmish Shapiro. And Dad moved permanently to Italy, not from love for his family there but from antipathy for contemporaries in New York with whom he’d fallen out—hostilities that cost him a place in various landmark shows, including the 1959 Documenta exhibition in Kassel and the Guggenheim show of sixty-four American painters in 1961.
Bear then abandoned the family in Rome and returned to New York because of pressure from his dealer, Victor Petros, a man famed for the quip: “Success in art is fifty percent timing, fifty percent geography. The rest is talent.”