An Artful Corpse Read online

  He gave Bill a friendly poke and turned away. “Hey, I’d better get to my spot before somebody grabs it.” His motivation was not strictly artistic. On his first night in class, when he had found himself at a bench easel next to Ellen Jamieson’s, he resolved that he’d return to that place every week.

  Ellen’s long, straight ash-blond hair cascaded down her slender back. Bright-blue eyes and a ready smile animated a round face with a naturally peachy complexion unspoiled by makeup. Her outgoing personality made casual conversation easy. She was what TJ classified, precociously, as his kind of woman. He took his place and greeted her.

  “Hi, Ellen. How’s the drawing coming along?”

  She rolled those bright blue eyes. “It’s a disaster. I just can’t seem to get the proportions right. And it looks like he’s made of rubber.” She flipped back the drawing pad’s cover to expose the sheet of newsprint she’d been working on.

  TJ studied the drawing with mock concern. It was pretty bad, he had to agree, but he certainly wasn’t going to say so, and he didn’t really care whether it was any good or not. It gave him an excuse to express interest in her indirectly by pretending to be interested in her work. It was an old ploy, but an effective one.

  “You’ve only been at it for a week, so you mustn’t be discouraged. I don’t think it’s so awful. You want to see a disaster, just look at mine.” He showed her, and she flashed that ready smile and told him he was right.

  Far from being offended, TJ was charmed by her honesty. He laughed and promised to work harder if she would. She agreed. He shook her hand earnestly. They grinned at each other and turned their attention to the subject at hand.

  The model, Walter Green, known to all as Wally—a former football player who had aged out of the team—knew the pose well. After disrobing behind the screened area where models could hang their clothes and relax during breaks, he had resumed the position assigned on the first day of class. It was the classic standing figure, legs slightly astride, one arm on hip, the other raised and holding the pole for balance. Masking tape outlines on the platform marked LANING-THU indicated the location and direction of his feet. With a trained athlete’s strength and discipline, the ex–running back could hold the pose without flinching for twenty minutes. Then a ten-minute break for a stretch or a smoke or a trip to the restroom, then another twenty minutes in position.

  After the first hour, Laning appeared and went around the room inspecting each student’s work. Some were busy with paintings and drawings they had begun the first day and were now refining. Others had scrapped their initial efforts and started over. Still others were making series of quick sketches or focusing on a particular feature.

  One reason Laning was such a popular teacher was his approach to criticism—always encouraging, never dismissive or disrespectful. He tailored his remarks to the individual and didn’t insist on a particular style or technique.

  There were instructors who grumbled loudly when a hapless student didn’t follow their way of doing things, snatched the brush and made corrections with humiliating abruptness, ridiculed inept drawings, or even tore them up in disgust, but Laning wasn’t one of them. Patience was his watchword, and he seemed to find something admirable in even the most tentative scribble.

  The way he criticized Ellen’s drawing, for example. She was struggling with the upper body, erasing and starting over several times, before Laning arrived at her easel.

  “You’re getting something there,” he said, squinting in concentration, “but perhaps give a little more thought to how the head and neck connect to the body. Your handling looks a bit vague, don’t you think?” She nodded in agreement. Then he approached Wally and pointed out how his prominent trapezius muscles sloped up from the shoulders, how the slight twist of his head gave each sternocleidomastoid a different definition.

  “Why not make a detail sketch of that area, and I’ll have a look at it at the end of class?” he suggested. Again she nodded and thanked him quietly. He gave her an encouraging smile in return and moved on to TJ, who had stuck with his original attempt to capture the full figure.

  “Fitzgerald, isn’t it? Well, you’re making progress,” said Laning, raising TJ’s hopes, then deflating them. “You’re a beginner, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied TJ. “I guess it’s pretty obvious.” He slumped a bit as he contemplated his maiden effort. But Laning reassured him.

  “Don’t be discouraged, son. It’s a good start, a very good start.”

  Three

  At eight thirty, it was time for another break. As Wally stepped down and the class relaxed, Laning made an announcement.

  “Listen, everyone, I want you to know that we’ll be having a distinguished visitor next Thursday evening. Thomas Hart Benton will be in town, and I’ve invited him to drop by and observe my class. I’d like you all to make him feel welcome.”

  There was a crash from behind the screen as Wally knocked over the low stool he used as a side table next to his armchair. “Sorry,” he called out, “I tripped. I’m okay.”

  This dramatic punctuation was in marked contrast to the class’s reaction. Laning got blank looks from most of the students, while others raised their eyebrows at each other and shrugged.

  “You mean to say you don’t know who Thomas Hart Benton is?” he asked no one in particular. Bill was the only one brave enough to reply out loud.

  “I remember Chris Gray mentioning his name once,” he said. “Wasn’t he a famous mural painter years ago, back in the Depression?” Gray, an aspiring muralist himself, had studied the work of his illustrious predecessors and, thanks to Laning’s recommendation, had just won the Edwin Austin Abbey Memorial Scholarship for Mural Painting.

  “Of course Chris would know,” replied Laning, casting a withering gaze around the studio, “but it’s shocking that the rest of you don’t recognize the name of one of America’s foremost living artists. His paintings have been hanging in the top museums since long before you were born, and his murals decorate important buildings around the country, including right here in New York City. Oh, and by the way, he taught right here in this building for some ten years.” His voice had risen to an unusually strident pitch.

  “Ever hear of Jackson Pollock?” he asked rhetorically and got the expected sheepish nods in response. The renowned abstract expressionist painter had recently been much in the news, thanks to a comprehensive exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art that spring.

  “Well, there would have been no Jackson Pollock without Thomas Hart Benton! Everything Jack knew about drawing, painting, and composition he learned here at the League from Benton. I mean everything, except the drip technique. That he learned from David Alfaro Siqueiros, the Mexican muralist, another great artist whose name you probably don’t recognize. Benton and Siqueiros are the giants whose shoulders Pollock stood on.”

  Laning took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to come on so strong. But it makes me angry to think that someone as influential as Benton is not better known today. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since he’s spent the last thirty years in Kansas City. He hasn’t had a New York show in twenty-five years, and the last one was only his prints. But that’s going to change.”

  “What do you mean, Mr. Laning?” asked Bill.

  “The reason he’s coming to town is because the Whitney is mounting a full-scale retrospective. Lloyd Goodrich, the director, tells me they’re pulling out all the stops, getting major museum loans, even borrowing back the murals he painted for the Whitney’s old building on Eighth Street. They were removed and sold to the museum in New Britain when the Whitney moved uptown in the ’50s. Of course they can’t get the ones that are permanently attached to buildings, but they’ll show preparatory sketches and photographs.”

  Laning’s spirits lifted as he described the exhibition’s scope. “It’s going to cover his whole
fifty-year career to date. Just wait until you see what he’s accomplished. It’s only because he chose to put New York behind him and base himself in the Midwest that he’s been eclipsed. It’s high time he got the recognition he deserves, and this show is going to make that happen. As soon as Goodrich told me about it, I wrote to Tom and asked him to come visit the League, and damned if he didn’t accept.”

  Ellen raised her hand. “Mr. Laning, you said there are Benton murals in New York, but the ones he painted for the Whitney went to Connecticut.”

  “That’s right,” he answered, “but there are others still here. In fact they’re the first murals he ever painted, and they’re in the New School, down on Twelfth Street. They’re called America Today, today being 1930, when the building was brand new and the Depression hadn’t yet devastated the economy. The theme is the people at work and play in the city and the country, full of vitality and optimism.”

  “However,” he continued, “by the time the murals were finished in 1931, things were looking bad, and Tom was criticized for ignoring the idle factories and foreclosed farms, the unemployment and the breadlines. His answer was that he wanted to show the positive forces at work in America, the energy that made this country great and would pull us through hard times. That argument contradicted the murals’ title, but Tom held his ground. He’s always been a contrary cuss.”

  “So you know him?” Ellen asked.

  “Oh, yes,” said Laning, “I met him when he was teaching here and I was a student, and got to know him a bit when I taught for a year, from ’31 to ’32. I never took his class but I got friendly with several fellows who did—Joe Meert, Pete Busa, Charlie Pollock, and his brother Jackson. They idolized Tom, and he treated them like family. He and his wife, Rita, would have them over to their place all the time. Rita was like a den mother. She’s Italian, very warm and welcoming. She’d feed them spaghetti and play the guitar for their musical evenings. Tom played the mouth organ.”

  Laning was clearly enjoying this look back to his salad days. “They used to sing folk songs, long before it was popular in the city, but that was part of Tom’s celebration of what he saw as the real America. I went to the sing-alongs a couple of times but I didn’t really fit in, even though I’m from the Midwest. It seemed old-fashioned to me. I didn’t appreciate Tom’s paintings, either. I thought of myself as too sophisticated for that hick stuff. Shows you the arrogance of youth.”

  He grinned and looked pointedly around the room. Not all the faces that looked back at him were as young as he had been in the early 1930s, but they all took his self-deprecating point.

  “Moral of the story is, when you examine Benton’s paintings—and I want you all to go to the Whitney show, and to see his murals at the New School—ignore the subject matter, which may seem corny, and the style, which is very out of fashion. Look at their solid structure, their superb composition, their complex organization. If you want to learn how to build a picture, representational or abstract, you can have no better example than a Benton.”

  Four

  “I’m just not getting it,” muttered Ellen to herself as the class broke up at ten p.m. Hands on hips, she studied her drawing, made a face at it, and shook her head. She pulled the sheet of newsprint off the pad, crumpled it up, and tossed it at the wastebasket, which she missed. It landed at Bill’s feet.

  “Don’t worry,” he said amiably, as he scooped up the errant wad of paper and dropped it in the basket, “I’m used to picking up the rejects. You’ll do better next time, and you won’t have to can it—or try to, that is.” He winked and treated her to one of his most disarming smiles.

  “You’re sweet,” she told him, “but I’m hopeless. Maybe I should quit this class and go to bookkeeping school instead. That’s what Mom wants me to do.”

  TJ realized it was irrational—after all, this was only their second class together—but her exchange with Bill annoyed him. Not only did he resent Bill’s flirting with her, he was also alarmed by the suggestion that she might stop coming to class. He’d just been working up to asking if she’d like to ride home with him on the subway. During one of the breaks, she had told him that she lived on East Fifteenth Street, off Union Square, which was his stop, too. She and a roommate shared an apartment—the “Up ’n’ Down,” she called it: a walk-up that’s run-down.

  “The stairs creak, the banister’s rickety, and the hall smells like a garbage pail, but we love it,” she said. “It’s great being out of the house and on our own. My mother doesn’t really approve, but I’m nineteen and earning a living, so she can’t complain. And she knows Michele, my roomie, is a good kid.” The two girls had been friends since childhood and, according to Ellen, always intended to share an apartment when the time came. They both relished their independence and felt very grown-up.

  She worked as a nickel thrower—a cashier in the Horn & Hardart Automat across the street from the League. From inside a glass booth, she made change for the customers who bought prepared food out of the windowed compartments that lined the restaurant’s walls. When the required number of five-cent coins, or a token for the more expensive items, was inserted into a slot next to the window, the compartment would open and the food could be removed. The Automat was famous for cheap and nourishing meals, making it a favorite haunt of the art students, who were especially fond of the fifty-cent hot dishes of macaroni and cheese and baked beans.

  After a few months on the job, Ellen had made friends with some of the League regulars, who often came in for lunch or dinner as a respite from the limited fare in the school’s cafeteria. One of them was Bill. He invited her to cross the street after work and offered to show her around the place, which captivated her with its bohemian atmosphere and comfortable camaraderie.

  She had always enjoyed going to the museums on school field trips and continued to visit them on her days off now that she was a working girl, but she’d never taken an art class and certainly never considered becoming an artist. When she shyly asked what it was like to draw pictures of naked people, Bill chuckled and told her she should find out for herself.

  “Why not try it, just for fun?” he suggested. “Sign up for the Thursday night class with Laning, he’s a good teacher for beginners.”

  So she did.

  Being a sociable type, not afraid to start a conversation or ask a question, Ellen had no trouble breaking the ice with her classmates. Several of them were greenhorns like herself, and she gravitated to one in particular, a handsome redheaded boy who she guessed was about her own age.

  She first bumped into him in the art supply store off the main lobby, where they were both trying to decide what they would need for the class.

  The man behind the counter was being helpful. “The Laning class that starts at seven? Will you be painting or drawing?”

  “Drawing,” they both said at once, and Ellen giggled.

  “There’s an echo in here,” said TJ, and they introduced themselves.

  The counterman recommended a large pad of newsprint and a box of charcoal sticks for each of them. “Better get a kneaded eraser as well,” he said with a grin. “Mistakes will happen.”

  Five

  TJ took his time packing up, loitering by his locker in the hope that Ellen would stop chatting with Bill and head out to the lobby, where he planned to intercept her. His patience was rewarded when she broke off their conversation with a smile and a toss of her head. “’Night, Bill,” she said as they parted, “see you at the Automat.”

  “You bet,” he replied.

  Their easy familiarity gave TJ a sinking feeling. At least Bill wasn’t taking her home. That would be his gambit.

  He caught up with her as she reached the inner door that led to the vestibule. Holding it open with gentlemanly courtesy, he waved her through.

  “Headed to the subway?” he asked, and got “Uh huh” in reply. “Let me walk you,” he offered. “I’m going the
re, too.”

  They turned east, entered the BMT station on the corner of Fifty-Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, and boarded the downtown N express. It was only three stops to Union Square, where TJ would offer to escort Ellen to her door. Her place really was on his way home, so it would seem perfectly natural, as well as chivalrous.

  On the short ride downtown, Ellen told him about her job. “It’s kind of boring just making change all day, but the artists from the League liven things up. I’m not allowed to talk to them while I’m on duty, but I can sit with them on my breaks. That’s how I met Bill, and he talked me into signing up for the life class. He’s a really cool guy.”

  TJ had to ask the question that obviously arose from this information. It was none of his business, and it might even seem forward, but he needed to know.

  “Are you going out with him?”

  Ellen answered without hesitation. “Oh, no, silly. Bill’s…well, he’s not my type.” She corrected herself. “I mean, I’m not his type.”

  TJ gave her a quizzical look. “I don’t get it. I think you’re…that is, who wouldn’t want to…oh, hell.” Mentally using stronger language to curse his ineptitude, he lapsed into embarrassed silence.

  She laughed and cocked her head. “You’re telling me you don’t know? Bill’s gay.”

  How could he have missed that? TJ was hardly unfamiliar with homosexuals. Before his father was promoted, he worked out of the Sixth Precinct. Any visit to the station house on Charles Street meant a walk through the heart of the gay bar scene. And two of his close friends, Alfonso Ossorio and Ted Dragon, where what gays used to be called back in 1956 when he first met them: pansies. But they were older men and an established couple, not like someone his own age, single, and not at all swish. Bill definitely didn’t fit any of the Christopher Street stereotypes. He looked and acted straight.