Restoration (10 page)

“The Louisiana Room?”

“Leave the ham alone and let me introduce you.”

It turned out to be a small exhibition room decorated from floor to ceiling with oil paintings, most of them by southern landscape and portrait artists of the nineteenth century. Few of the paintings looked to be less than fifty years old and none was contemporary. The most impressive of the offerings, the Walker plantation scene, was hanging at the center of the wall facing the open double doors. That made it the first thing you encountered upon entering. At the moment Rhys and I were alone in the room, so she was free to talk. “I don’t like it,” she said. “No, I actually feel more strongly about it than that. I
hate
it. I abhor it.”

“I like it a lot.”

“Yes, well, in this case my opinion represents the minority, I assure you. I suppose I’m way too sensitive to Walker’s use of demeaning racial stereotypes. The mostly white collectors of southern art covet his sentimental renderings of enslaved or indentured African Americans at their toil. ‘Country blacks,’ I hear collectors call them. These cotton kingdom images evoke feelings of nostalgia, though not the sort anyone but a real shitbird would admit to.”

“A what kind of bird?”

“A shitbird, Jack. A
shitbird.”

“It’s a nice painting. Come on, Rhys. What’s so hard to accept about it?” When she didn’t answer, I said, “Why does it always have to be so personal with you?”

“Why? Because all art is personal,” she said matter-of-factly. “Otherwise it isn’t art—it’s
decoration.
Now move out of the way, Jack. You’re blocking my light.”

She stepped up to better inspect the painting, and I stood a few feet behind her. Men, women and children populated the scene, along with mules pulling covered wagons and dogs snoozing in deep puddles of sun. Everybody seemed to be working hard; the burlap sacks
hanging from the men’s shoulders were stuffed, as were the tall cane baskets balanced on the heads of some of the women. In the background there stood a gin house with stacks belching smoke, as well as the big house and assorted outbuildings, one of them a rustic cabin complete with animal pelts tacked to the wall. The blue expanse of sky suggested good times.

These people might’ve been serving their white master, but they appeared more than happy to do so. The catalog listing dated the painting as circa 1885, two decades after the Civil War and the emancipation of the American Negro.

Rhys was still studying the image when she said, “One of the unspoken truths about Walker collectors is that they’re buying pictures of people they would never allow in their own homes, except on those occasions when their houses need to be cleaned.”

“So you’re calling anyone who owns one of these things a racist?” I laughed but not with any feeling. “Aren’t you being a little unfair?”

“It’s fine to hang pictures of African Americans on the wall,” she continued, “but don’t let a real one walk through the front door.”

“What a load of crap. I don’t believe that at all, Rhys.”

“You’re wrong not to,” she said. “As a rule the more poor black people there are in a Walker, the more valuable the painting. And a painting depicting poor blacks is always more desirable than one showing poor whites. If it weren’t so insidious, Jack, I might be as amused as you are.”

“Amused? No, Rhys, I’m not amused. You just called my late father a racist because he owned a painting by this artist. I’ll have you know he was nothing of the kind. We had black people visit our home quite often when I was growing up, always on social calls. Not one of them did the housekeeping.”

“I was trying to make a point. I didn’t mean to impugn your father’s integrity.”

“But you did, Rhys. You did that exactly. And all because he owned a little picture by an artist you don’t happen to like.”

She stepped back from the painting and looked around the room.
She might’ve been wrong—and dead wrong, at that—but there would be no apology. “Have you noticed by chance anything curious about the paintings in this room today?”

“No.”

“Not one of them shows blacks and whites together. Not one, Jack. See that painting there of the French Quarter, circa 1932? Every figure in it is black. The nun is black, the child is black, the washerwomen are black, the man pushing the cart is black. But in this painting—it’s by the Impressionist Clarence Millet—the people are all white. Every one is white. Why is that, Jack? Were all the artists back then racists who believed in segregating the human race by skin color?” I didn’t answer and she said, “Of course they weren’t all racists. Until the sixties artists in many areas of the Deep South were
forbidden
to paint images showing blacks and whites together unless the blacks were depicted in attitudes of subservience to the whites. Oh, you had plenty of pictures showing black maids waiting on their white employers and nursing their white children, and white foremen lording over crews of black laborers. And you might’ve had some showing famous black entertainers entertaining white crowds. But you never saw a picture where the races were integrated and treated as equals. Granted, segregation was a fact of life. But to look at the paintings in this room today,” she said, “you would think that in the old days blacks and whites occupied polar universes.”

She pointed to a painting of a popular French Quarter location called Pirate’s Alley. It showed the area crowded with white people. She then pointed out another painting of the same location. The second painting, which looked to have been painted at the same time as the first, counted half a dozen African Americans but no whites. “Did whites have their hours when they could walk down the alley?” she said. “And did blacks have theirs? Didn’t they ever walk down the alley together at the same time? If indeed they did happen to walk down the alley at the same time, why wasn’t there ever an artist there to capture the moment? Think about it, Jack. Most of these paintings were done for tourists, and many thousands were painted. How could
it be that artists failed to find an occasion when both black and white people were strolling down that alley together?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t either. Want to hear a story? There once was an artist from a small town in Mississippi who entered a painting in an art-club contest. This was some time in the late fifties, and the painting showed a large public swimming pool crowded with both black and white people, all of them mixed together and enjoying the water on a hot summer day. The painting was beautifully done, and it won the contest, beating out a portrait of a long-dead Confederate general painted by the wife of the local sheriff. The woman complained about the content of the winning picture to her husband, and that night he and his deputies showed up at the artist’s doorstep and told him he had a choice to make. He could paint the figures black or he could paint them white but he couldn’t show blacks and whites swimming in the same pool together. The blacks had their pool on one side of town and the whites had theirs on the other side. He said the painting was subversive and anti-American.”

“What did the artist do?”

“He refused to alter the painting and the deputies dragged him outside and beat him until he listened to reason.”

“Did the artist fix the painting?”

“He made all of the figures white, if that’s what you mean by fixing it.”

She was upset and I knew better than to push it any further. I opened the catalog and turned to the description of the Walker painting, spread out with color photographs over two pages. The high side of the painting’s estimate was $200,000. According to the description, the size of the painting—twenty-eight by forty-two inches—was monumental for an artist best known for painting on a small scale, and its provenance was impeccable. It had belonged to the same New Orleans family since the date of its creation, when the original owner bought it personally from the artist.

I could feel Rhys looking over my shoulder at the catalog, and I
closed it and wheeled around and faced her. “Look at your own copy, won’t you?”

“I don’t mean to take it out on you, Jack. But sometimes I could just scream. Am I the only person who sees it? If others see it, why don’t they say anything about it?” She stood in front of the Walker again and held her hands behind her back. “Now let me broach another sensitive subject,” she said, “off the subject of race this time.”

“Thank you, Rhys.”

“Why would the consignor of the Walker choose to betray his legacy, break his family’s long history of ownership and place the painting up for sale?”

“How many guesses do I get?”

“As many as you need.”

“Money,” I answered, then recalled my own experience with my father’s collection and offered another possibility. “Or maybe it belonged to somebody who died. And maybe the people who survived him couldn’t look at it without seeing him and missing him and wishing they were dead themselves.”

“Your second guess is less likely than your first, although by the tone of your voice you could be sharing a personal experience. While I don’t discount it, I’ve noticed an alarming trend lately, and I have a theory that conforms to your first answer.”

“Are we in school, Rhys? You sound like a damn professor. Dr. Goudeau.”

She ignored me. “Ever since the Louisiana legislature legalized gambling in the state there have been more rare and fine items appearing at auction. It’s my guess that the city’s aristocrats enjoy playing craps and poker at Harrah’s and the riverboat casinos as much as the city’s white trash do. It’s also my guess that their luck at the games is no better. In the Deep South, in times of a depressed economy, the first things sold off usually are Grandpa’s favorite Colt pistol, his prized Confederate saber or his cotton kingdom painting by William Aiken Walker.”

“Will that be a question on the final exam, Dr. Goudeau?”

“Shut up, Jack.”

Minutes later a tall, attractive woman with long red hair joined us in the room. Her name was Lucinda Copeland, and she worked at the auction house as the consignment director for paintings and fine arts. It had been her job to catalog the offerings now featured in the Louisiana Room. After Rhys introduced us to each other, Lucinda turned her attention to the Walker. “Well, what do you think?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Rhys answered, “I won’t be bidding it. What do Tommy Smallwood and Mary Lou Cohn think? That’s the question.”

“Mary Lou’s crazy about it,” Lucinda said. “She’s already gone on record saying they have to have it. If you can believe it, she asked me yesterday how to approach Mr. Smallwood and persuade him not to pursue it. I told her I didn’t have a clue.”

“Mary Lou Cohn is acquisitions director for the Historic New Orleans Collection,” Rhys told me. “She and Tommy Smallwood have had some nasty battles in the past.”

“Nasty is an apt description,” said Lucinda Copeland. “So are ugly, bloody, vicious and murderous. But Mary Lou’s never outbid Mr. Smallwood, to my recollection.”

“Never?” I said.

“Never. In fact, now that I think about it, I’ve never known Mr. Smallwood to finish as the underbidder. What I mean by that is, he has never lost anything he’s gone after. I’ve watched him bid against museums as large as the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and as small as one in the rural town of Lawtell, Louisiana, and in the latter case he was as ferocious in his bidding as he was in the former one. The lot is introduced and Mr. Smallwood’s paddle goes up. It stays there until the hammer comes down finalizing the sale. It’s reached the point where he usually gets things at a good price because he intimidates other buyers. Figuring they can’t beat him, they concede after a few bids. Years ago, when he first started to collect, everyone here
at Neal would become excited by his pursuit of things because it meant he would drive the price up. Now we dread it.”

“You dread it,” I said.

“The auction house doesn’t own the lots that are sold here—the people who consign them are the owners—but we do receive a commission, a percentage of what things sell for. If they go cheap, we’re not making as much money as we would if they were going at higher prices. And if they go cheap, the consignors are unhappy.”

“So you’re hoping Smallwood doesn’t want the Walker painting?” I said.

“We’re hoping he won’t be the only one competing for it. Let me put it that way.”

“Will he be here tonight?” I asked.

“Oh, that you can count on,” said Lucinda. “Mr. Smallwood is a regular at previews, storming in just long enough to announce which lots he intends to buy, and just long enough to frighten away any other buyers who might be considering the same items. He’s very shrewd. Dogs mark their territory by lifting a leg and spraying the periphery of that area which they designate as home turf. Mr. Smallwood, to my knowledge, has not yet watered the gallery floors, but he’s done his share of posturing. Unlike others of his financial standing, he has never sent a proxy to do his bidding. And he’s never bid by telephone. Some wealthy buyers prefer to remain anonymous—‘stealth bidders,’ we call them. But Mr. Smallwood not only grasps the importance of being seen, he exploits it. When it comes to the psychology of winning at auction, Tommy Smallwood is a master.”

No more than ten minutes after Lucinda Copeland had completed this pronouncement a commotion erupted in the gallery. Rhys grabbed me by the arm and led me out of the Louisiana Room. “Speaking of Beelzebub,” she said, then lifted a hand and pointed toward the entrance. “Movie and rock stars and other celebrities come through Neal all the time. But no one jazzes up the place like that horrible monster.”

Smallwood was standing with a young woman in the front of the
gallery. A throng had rushed up to greet him; I had to stand on the balls of my feet to get a good look at him. Smallwood was a big man, big enough to fill up the double doors and crowd out light from the Popeyes sign across the street. He had about him the air of the champion athlete who expects even those who don’t like or follow sports to kiss up to him. His pumpkin head rode his shoulders without the apparent benefit of a neck, and he had one of those trendy haircuts that made him look as though he’d just held his head against a box fan. His looks were disturbing, but I did like his clothes: an off-white linen suit and a light blue Oxford shirt with an open collar, shoes that looked English and handmade. As for his companion, she was the sort of woman one often sees positioned at the entrance of an upscale French Quarter gentlemen’s club, pretending to have come out for a breath of air when in fact her aim was to lure gullible men inside. Every gesture was a pose. Not wishing to objectify the woman, I will refrain from describing how she was built, except to say she had the largest breasts I’d ever seen in my life.