Dark Picasso

by Rick Homan

  “Nah, they may not have liked her, but she was a potential donor.”

  “How can you be so cynical?”

  “I work in the arts. Who do you think could have done it?”

  Pat gave my question serious consideration before saying, “Maybe Tiffany’s husband, Dale. Anne put a few dents in his ego, and he struck me as a bit of a narcissist. They generally don’t forgive insults.”

  “Do you remember the way she flirted with Dale,” I asked. “Tiffany had every reason to take her out. I know I felt like doing it when she flirted with you.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Pat. “We’re overlooking the most likely suspect. It’s always the husband.”

  I shook my head. “No, John Ghent struck me as too passive.”

  Pat stepped behind me as I stood at the sink and put his arms around me. “And where were you on Tuesday night between 9:00 p.m. and midnight?”

  “Why, officer,” I replied, using the squeaky voice of a movie chick, “I was home, all alone, so I don’t really have an alibi.”

  “Hmm,” he purred, as he squeezed me tighter. “I think you’re resisting arrest. I’ll have to take you into custody.”

  And with that, he picked me up and we headed for the bedroom.

  Chapter 5

  Thursday morning after breakfast I propped myself up on my futon to read and mark term papers for my new class, Modern Art. Throughout my first two years of teaching, I taught Art Appreciation, Art History I, and Art History II. By doing so, I had gotten enough students interested in art that a dozen or so would want to take a course that went into more depth. Last year, with a little arm-twisting, I got my department to approve the new course, and this semester, I enrolled eleven, just enough to satisfy the dean.

  Since this was a course for juniors and seniors, I went beyond quizzes, exams and short reports and assigned a term paper. Throughout the semester, while walking them through the “-isms”—impressionism, symbolism, fauvism, expressionism, cubism, neo-classicism, etc.—I had also coached them on coming up with a topic, doing the research, and developing a thesis.

  I read the term papers for nearly an hour and concluded they were varied to say the least. Some students took information from several sources, filled their papers with quotations and paraphrases, and said nothing about what they were trying to prove. Others praised a painter or a certain style and repeated that praise more and more forcefully in each succeeding paragraph. A few started with a mistaken definition of the chosen topic and went on to make ever wilder claims for its importance.

  One paper was quite good. Elaine Wiltman had chosen to write about abstract expressionism, which was an ambitious choice. Most of my students avoided abstract art because it doesn’t present a recognizable picture of something. Elaine started with the idea that this style was invented in response to social and economic conditions in the United States after the World War II. She said many painters stopped representing recognizable things and started working with abstract shapes and fields of color because the world wars had made the world unrecognizable. The evidence she presented may not have made her conclusion inevitable, but it was plausible.

  I wondered how I had overlooked Elaine all semester in a class of eleven. Occasionally she asked a thoughtful question, but she’d never struck me as having this sort of insight.

  I got to my office an hour before my first class to go through my routine for grading. I re-read the comments I had written on the papers and sorted them into piles for A, B, C, and D. Then I entered the grade for each paper on my spreadsheet for the class. Finally, I wrote the grade on the paper itself.

  When I looked at the row on my spreadsheet for Elaine Wiltman, intending to enter an A for her paper, I noticed her grades on the quizzes were C’s and D’s. On the midterm essay exam, she earned a C-minus. That made me stop and look again at her paper and the comments I had written on it. No mistake: the paper really was top-notch. Had she soared so far above her earlier performance in the course by hard work and getting some tutoring from the Academic Skills Center? Or was there another explanation?

  I finished entering the rest of the grades and marking the other papers, but decided not to hand them back to the class yet. That could wait until Friday.

  As I looked over Elaine’s paper once more, I had that prickly feeling that comes with facing sticky situations. I couldn’t believe that a C-minus student had so quickly learned to write an A paper. But I couldn’t simply tell her I didn’t believe this paper was her own work. I needed evidence.

  I spent the remaining time before class searching the library’s online databases for published articles on the origins of abstract expressionism that sounded like they might be similar to Elaine’s paper, and ordered copies of a few.

  If I ruled the world, I would have done further research on Tiffany’s Picasso at lunchtime on Thursday. Instead, I convened the Gallery Advisory Committee, so we could settle on the fall exhibition and wrap things up for the year. No one brought lunch with them. I assumed the others preferred, as I did, not to eat in the cramped, windowless seminar room on the second floor of the Arts and Humanities Building.

  “Here is the final information on Mira Robillard,” I said as I passed around copies of a stapled packet to the members of the committee. “I think her watercolors are wonderful.”

  “Yes,” said Greta Oswald, “we need some color.”

  Greta was consistently an advocate for color. On that spring day she wore a scarlet blouse with an orange plaid skirt and a lavender cardigan. She did not understand color, but she was definitely in favor of it.

  Shirley Armstrong, associate professor of English, turned the pages of the handout. She had replaced Matt Dunkle on the committee a little over a year ago. Stopping at a photo of Robillard’s picture of daffodils in a woodland setting, she said, “This reminds me, the daffodils are still blooming in that field beyond College Avenue. It also reminds me of Wordsworth. ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud . . .’”

  “We’re talking about art, not literature, Shirley,” said Greta.

  “Thanks for mentioning that, Shirley,” I said. “I’ll have to take a walk out there and see them.”

  “I’d like to know what Bert thinks of these,” said Shirley, grinning.

  Bert Stemple, assistant professor of marketing, joined the faculty last fall when the School of Business opened. He was appointed to the committee to replace Millard Haflin, a retired professor of psychology, who passed away almost a year ago. I’d been sorry to see Millard go. He had a way of speaking plainly that got to the heart of the matter.

  A pleasant man in his forties, Bert had taken a break from business suits today, and was wearing a camel-hair jacket, brown slacks, and a pin-striped shirt with a dark tie. He must have gotten a haircut every week because I never saw a loose end around his ears or collar. His hair on top was so perfect around the edges that I wondered if he wore a toupee.

  Shirley seemed to like Bert from the moment she met him at one of our meetings, and she often flirted with him. It seemed unlikely this would ever go anywhere, since she was more than ten years older than him. Ever the gentleman, Bert was pleasant but noncommittal with her.

  “I agree with Nicole,” said Bert. “They’re beautiful.”

  “But the marketing, Bert,” said Shirley, doubling down on her effort to woo him. “That’s where you’re so valuable to us.”

  “The gallery’s brand is still coming into focus,” said Bert. “As it does, we can identify different interest groups. After that, we can talk about a plan to reach out and bring more people into the exhibitions.”

  Shirley gaped like a fourteen-year-old. “That makes so much sense,” she said with a wide smile.

  “All right, then,” I said. “With the committee’s consent, I’ll get a contract out to Mira Robillard and we’ll schedule the exhibition for fall semester.”

  Greta chuckled and rolled her eyes. “Nicole, dear, we haven’t even discussed this yet.”

  “
Yes, we have, Greta. We discussed several artists last time and settled on Robillard.”

  “But,” said Shirley, “what about the gallery’s brand? It’s . . . what did you say, Bert?”

  “Coming into focus.”

  “Yes!” She gave him an especially warm smile.

  “And that’s just fine,” I replied. “We can all watch as it comes into focus.”

  Shirley said, “But I’m just wondering if these watercolors, lovely as they are, are helping to focus the gallery’s brand. What do you think, Bert?”

  “Well, yes, each additional exhibition brings it more and more into focus. You might say it fills in the picture a little more.”

  “That is so interesting,” said Shirley, placing her elbow on the table, and resting her chin in her palm.

  Bert looked at me with the beginnings of panic in his eyes. I had to do something to save him and spare myself from having to witness any more of Shirley’s nauseating flattery. “Shirley,” I said, “I think you could do us all a favor by looking back over our four exhibitions so far and giving us your impression of what kind of a gallery we’re becoming.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said.

  “Send us all an email, describing the gallery’s brand as you see it, giving examples of how each exhibit contributed.”

  Leaning forward, Shirley said, “I think Bert and I should meet to discuss that.”

  Bert was now glaring at me and he was beginning to perspire.

  “No, Shirley,” I said. “It would be best if any discussion took place with the full committee present. I was hoping your email would give us a starting point for that discussion.”

  “I don’t think I feel up to doing that all by myself,” she said, and I swear she seemed to be undressing him with her eyes.

  “All right then,” I said, “you and I can meet to discuss it next week. I’ll send you an email.”

  She gave me a look that was noticeably cooler than the ones she had been sending Bert’s way.

  Hurrying to put this meeting out of its misery, I announced, “Hearing no objections to our selection of Robillard, I will proceed to get a contract out to her. We are adjourned. Thank you all for your service to the gallery. If I don’t see you again, have a wonderful summer.”

  I hurried out of the seminar room, heading for my office, feeling mildly depressed by having to manage the personalities of my committee. I would send Shirley an email, as I said I would. If she wrote back about a time to meet, I would take my time replying. With any luck that meeting would never take place.

  By keeping the meeting short, I’d left myself just enough time to get to the Greenbrae Art Museum by two o’clock, which was when Sandra Carlini was expecting me. Since Saturday evening, I had been curious to add this small museum to my list of local favorites, which included the Columbus Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Cincinnati Art Museum. I also wanted to ask Sandra and Curtis for their impressions of Tiffany’s Picasso.

  As I made my third trip in six days up Route 35, stretches of the road started to look familiar. When I reached I-71, I would turn southwest to reach the town of Elbridge, instead of northeast as Pat and I had done the previous Saturday to get to Fairhaven for the Milman’s dinner party.

  I turned on the car’s radio, and within a few minutes heard an hourly news report. I snapped to attention when I heard, “Police have arrested Tyrell Johnson of Wickwood in connection with the shooting death of Anne Ghent . . .” The report said nothing about a possible motive for the killing and nothing about how the police had located this suspect. I made a mental note to ask Sandra and Curtis if they had heard other reports.

  Elbridge was built around a plaza, similar to the city of Sonoma, California, which I had often visited on trips to the wine country. This surprised me since Ohio does not have a history of Spanish influence as Northern California does. Yet Elbridge’s plan was the same as Sonoma’s with a courthouse, bronze statues, and other historic monuments in the middle of a green park that covered four square blocks. On the streets that bordered the park were a hotel and retail stores with offices above them. Passing these civic amenities on Church Street, I saw three churches and a public library in a neighborhood of well-kept, large, old houses.

  After passing through a section of smaller, newer houses, Church Street became Revere Road, which wound up a hillside. At the top I found the Greenbrae Art Museum in a late-Victorian house devoted to excess and ostentation. An octagonal tower topped with a witch’s hat anchored one corner. A wide bay window with a gable above made up the opposite corner. A steep roof rose behind them both, promising vast spaces within.

  I had learned from the museum’s website that the house and the core of the art collection were the creations of Horace Oaks, a native of Elbridge, who went to Montana, made his fortune in mining, and returned to his home town in 1903. He married Lucy Revere, daughter of a local wealthy family, built a grand home, filled it with an art collection, and devoted himself to philanthropy for the remaining sixteen years of his life. Upon his death, all his property passed to his wife, and, since they had no heirs, she willed it all to a charitable foundation to benefit the town.

  I drove past the front of the house and pulled into a graveled area, which, I assumed, was for parking though I saw no other cars there. Before getting out and walking back to the house, I sent Sandra a text to say I had arrived.

  Chapter 6

  By the time I climbed the steps to the roofed porch, which spanned the front of the house, Sandra Carlini was waiting at the front door.

  “I hope you haven’t opened just for me,” I said.

  “Not at all,” she replied. “We were busy this morning, but things have tapered off this afternoon. Come on in.”

  The entry hall presented the visitor with a grand staircase and a corridor that led to the back of the house. On the right, through an archway, was a large parlor. To the left was a pair of smaller parlors, the first of which had a large bay window. Here they had set up the ticket counter and informational displays for welcoming visitors. Behind the second parlor was the dining room.

  “There are Queen Anne houses like this in San Francisco,” I said.

  “Is that where you’re from?”

  I nodded. “And these are wonderful spaces for displaying this work,” I said as we walked through the parlors.

  “Thank you,” said Sandra. “I think Curtis made a very good choice to concentrate on the best parts of Oaks’ collection: painters of the Barbizon school, the better genre painters, the Hudson river school. Anyone who wants to survey art history can go to Cincinnati. Here, they can get a detailed look at American and European painting of the middle and late 1800s.”

  We arrived in the last gallery and I admired pictures of dramatic events played out against simplified backdrops of forests and hills. “I don’t know this artist.”

  “George Caleb Bingham,” said Sandra. “In the mid-1800s, he made a career of these scenes of campaign gatherings and polling places in rural locations. He was no realist. He deliberately idealized the political process of the young nation and depicted the landscape as a Garden of Eden. He celebrates the idea of a nation of farmers deciding their own destiny.”

  “Now that you mention it, I have heard his name, but I hadn’t thought he was important.”

  “For a long time, he was dismissed as a commercial artist, but recently the art market has taken another look at him. There have been a couple significant auctions in the past few years of his works and those of his contemporaries.”

  I had to laugh. “Sometimes the dealers tell the historians where to look, instead of the other way around.”

  Sandra smiled. “It’s a two-way street.”

  I turned to another wall that featured scenes of African Americans in ragged clothes. “And whose work is this?”

  “Eastman Johnson. He painted these scenes of the daily lives of slaves during the 1850s. He was for a long time dismissed as sentimental, but
all that changed about twenty years ago when his masterpiece, Negro Life at the South, got a major re-evaluation. The iconography in that picture is a subtle and satirical look at American society before the Civil War.”

  “Do you have it here?”

  “No. Too bad. It’s owned by the New York Historical Society.”

  Glancing around the room, I said, “So apparently Oaks had a good eye.”

  Sandra shrugged. “He bought some good stuff; he also bought some stuff that’s not so good. Probably he simply followed the suggestions of dealers to buy works that were popular. He had a big house, and he was in a hurry to fill it up.”

  We walked back out to the front hall.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” said Sandra. “We’re not yet using the bedrooms for exhibition—we’re still remodeling—but you can see the offices. I think Curtis is up here.”

  As we went along the upstairs corridor, I could see they would easily double their exhibition space once the remodeling was finished.

  Sandra walked through a doorway to a back bedroom, and said, “Curtis, Nicole is here. I’ve just been showing her the collection.”

  As I walked in, he came around his desk to shake my hand. He wore a suit and tie as he had Saturday evening. He was, as I remembered, a few inches taller than me and lightly built. “Thank you so much for visiting this afternoon. I know it’s a drive for you.”

  “Well worth it,” I replied.

  He gestured to two chairs in front of his desk. “Sit down. We can chat for a few minutes, although I’m waiting for a phone call, and I’ll have to take it when it comes.”

  “Oh. Is that today?” asked Sandra.

  Curtis nodded.

  “You’d better stay focused,” she said. Turning to me, she asked, “Would you like some coffee or tea?”

  “Tea would be fine.”

  She turned back to Curtis and said, “We’ll wait for you in the kitchen.”

  As we walked back down the corridor to the stairs, Sandra said, “I forget if that phone call is from a foundation or from a donor. Either way, we need the support. It’s costing a fortune to bring this old place up to code and make it welcoming to the public. We’ve still got a long way to go.”