Read Online An Object of Beauty: A Novel by Steve Martin - Free Book Online
Authors: Steve Martin
Tags: FIC019000
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sense rather than manipulative evil, Tanya correctly understood that she was the next person up the ladder whom Lacey could displace. So Tanya was attentive when Lacey was called into Cherry’s office, and she watched Lacey cross the room, the door closing behind her.
“Do you know who Rockwell Kent is?” asked Cherry.
“Somewhat,” said Lacey. “Illustrated
Moby-Dick
, right? Painter too.”
“Painter, mainly,” replied Cherry. “Not one of the top Americans, but rare. Plus, he had ties to Robert Henri, and the Canadians, Lawren Harris, Group of Seven. Landscape painter, mostly. Greenland was his big subject. Icy fjords with Eskimo dogs in tiny perspective standing by their masters. During his lifetime everyone admired them but nobody bought them. Communist sympathizer, ‘man for the people’ type. He ended up owning most of his own major works. Then in the fifties, at the worst time for a citizen to be sympathetic to Russia, he snubbed America and donated most of his work to ‘the Russian people.’ What already looked bad became actually bad.
“Now forty years have gone by and nobody remembers his Communist bent, and people who want a Rockwell Kent
of size
can’t get one, and there are about eighty large paintings sitting in Russia, and Russia couldn’t care less.”
Cherry shuffled some papers, as though she were waiting for Lacey to figure it all out. Finally, Lacey said the only thing she could think of:
“What are they worth?”
November in Greenland,
Rockwell Kent, 1932
34.25 × 44.5 in.
“A top, top Kent would bring about four hundred to six hundred thousand dollars.”
“Times eighty,” said Lacey.
“Not really,” said Cherry, “because you couldn’t put them on the market all at once, and some are better than others. But placing a few pictures in conspicuous museums, and releasing one or two a year onto the market could be a nice annuity for someone.”
Lacey wondered for whom. “But you can’t get them out of Russia?”
“That’s what we’re going to try and find out. Could you meet Barton Talley at his gallery on Monday, around eleven a.m.?”
The weekend was a long one for Lacey. She wondered what possible involvement she would have in the Rockwell Kent endeavor, andshe was excited because the request indicated career movement—and not just stolid up-the-ladder movement, either, but a skip-step that put her near the center of the action. At parties, Lacey’s fearlessness always guided her to the top person in the room, and her cleverness made the top person in the room believe that he had guided himself to her. But the Sotheby’s feeler seemed to come from nowhere, maybe even merit. She figured out that Talley had called Cherry, and Cherry had recommended her for something. What, she did not know.
16.
LACEY NOTED THAT days moved faster when nightlife was involved, so she planned to meet up with Angela and Sharon in Chelsea for drinks. Art galleries populated the area, but Lacey didn’t normally frequent them. She was East Side, and the art she represented was understood; Chelsea was West Side, and the art it represented was misunderstood. She had been meaning to go but never did, as her travel in Manhattan was vertical, not horizontal.
Lacey’s new dress was, as she described it to me, “schoolgirl with possibilities.” She knew that the conservative quality of the outfit set her apart from the other females who stuffed themselves into jeans and four-inch heels on Saturday night and then, after two too many drinks, bellowed in the bar with resonant horse laughs. Her rule for weekend dressing was excess during the day and sophistication at night. After pulling tight her wide patent-leather belt and leaning over and shaking her hair into a perfect mess, after hurriedly sticking blue Post-it notes on furniture in her apartment that she meant to get rid of, she taxied sideways across town to catch a few galleries on their last gala Saturday before the onset of
“Do you know who Rockwell Kent is?” asked Cherry.
“Somewhat,” said Lacey. “Illustrated
Moby-Dick
, right? Painter too.”
“Painter, mainly,” replied Cherry. “Not one of the top Americans, but rare. Plus, he had ties to Robert Henri, and the Canadians, Lawren Harris, Group of Seven. Landscape painter, mostly. Greenland was his big subject. Icy fjords with Eskimo dogs in tiny perspective standing by their masters. During his lifetime everyone admired them but nobody bought them. Communist sympathizer, ‘man for the people’ type. He ended up owning most of his own major works. Then in the fifties, at the worst time for a citizen to be sympathetic to Russia, he snubbed America and donated most of his work to ‘the Russian people.’ What already looked bad became actually bad.
“Now forty years have gone by and nobody remembers his Communist bent, and people who want a Rockwell Kent
of size
can’t get one, and there are about eighty large paintings sitting in Russia, and Russia couldn’t care less.”
Cherry shuffled some papers, as though she were waiting for Lacey to figure it all out. Finally, Lacey said the only thing she could think of:
“What are they worth?”
November in Greenland,
Rockwell Kent, 1932
34.25 × 44.5 in.
“A top, top Kent would bring about four hundred to six hundred thousand dollars.”
“Times eighty,” said Lacey.
“Not really,” said Cherry, “because you couldn’t put them on the market all at once, and some are better than others. But placing a few pictures in conspicuous museums, and releasing one or two a year onto the market could be a nice annuity for someone.”
Lacey wondered for whom. “But you can’t get them out of Russia?”
“That’s what we’re going to try and find out. Could you meet Barton Talley at his gallery on Monday, around eleven a.m.?”
The weekend was a long one for Lacey. She wondered what possible involvement she would have in the Rockwell Kent endeavor, andshe was excited because the request indicated career movement—and not just stolid up-the-ladder movement, either, but a skip-step that put her near the center of the action. At parties, Lacey’s fearlessness always guided her to the top person in the room, and her cleverness made the top person in the room believe that he had guided himself to her. But the Sotheby’s feeler seemed to come from nowhere, maybe even merit. She figured out that Talley had called Cherry, and Cherry had recommended her for something. What, she did not know.
16.
LACEY NOTED THAT days moved faster when nightlife was involved, so she planned to meet up with Angela and Sharon in Chelsea for drinks. Art galleries populated the area, but Lacey didn’t normally frequent them. She was East Side, and the art she represented was understood; Chelsea was West Side, and the art it represented was misunderstood. She had been meaning to go but never did, as her travel in Manhattan was vertical, not horizontal.
Lacey’s new dress was, as she described it to me, “schoolgirl with possibilities.” She knew that the conservative quality of the outfit set her apart from the other females who stuffed themselves into jeans and four-inch heels on Saturday night and then, after two too many drinks, bellowed in the bar with resonant horse laughs. Her rule for weekend dressing was excess during the day and sophistication at night. After pulling tight her wide patent-leather belt and leaning over and shaking her hair into a perfect mess, after hurriedly sticking blue Post-it notes on furniture in her apartment that she meant to get rid of, she taxied sideways across town to catch a few galleries on their last gala Saturday before the onset of
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