An Artful Corpse Read online

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  An inquiry at the reception desk directed Ellen and TJ to the third floor, where, they were told, Mr. Benton was leading a small party on a tour of his murals. They almost turned away, somewhat relieved at avoiding another encounter with the obnoxious artist, but the receptionist suggested they go on up and ask if it was all right to join the tour.

  “After all,” she said, “it isn’t every day you get to hear the paintings explained by the man who painted them.” She had a point, and after a brief consultation they decided to take her advice.

  They found the group gathered outside the boardroom awaiting Benton, who was said to be in the men’s room. They approached the leader, a New School board member, mentioned that they were art students eager to see the murals, and were invited to join the tour as his guests.

  “I’m sure Benton won’t remember us,” said TJ confidentially to Ellen. “I doubt he even remembers visiting the class, considering his condition.”

  Before she could reply, Benton rounded the corner and came toward the group. His gait was just a bit unsteady, and TJ and Ellen glanced at each other and nodded, as if to say, looks like he’s in the same condition now.

  The artist bowed ceremoniously and, with a flourish, waved a hand above his head and pointed to the boardroom door. “Right this way, ladies and gentlemen,” he bellowed, “the show is about to begin. The three-ring spectacle that is America awaits you!” Then he marched on in, and the tour trailed along in his wake.

  Those in the party who had not seen the murals before were visibly stunned by their effect. The pictures stretched almost from floor to ceiling and circled the room, broken only by the entrance door and two windows in the opposite wall, where the largest panel, a montage of so-called instruments of power, from a speeding locomotive and soaring plane to a hydroelectric dam driving a piston engine, fairly pulsed with energy. The main program, in six sections of overlapping vignettes separated by strips of silver molding, was a kind of travelogue around the country, depicting life-size American character types—the steelworker, the farmer, the coal miner, the lumberjack—engaged in manual labor.

  As TJ scanned the scenes, he realized that all the workers were male. Muscles bulging, bodies poised for action or straining at their tasks, they toiled productively, building a strong, confident nation full of steaming trains, bustling docks, roaring blast furnaces, and fertile fields. Only in the miners’ slumping bodies and downcast faces were there any signs of fatigue. When TJ mentioned this to Ellen, and pointed out that women were conspicuously absent, she directed him to a small detail at the bottom of the panel dominated by a huge oil derrick and a welder.

  “Look,” she whispered, “there’s a working girl.” It was a prostitute, vamping a dejected Indian—both victims of westward industrialization.

  After taking in this dynamic panorama, those who looked behind them saw two even more action-packed panels representing city activities in the Roaring Twenties, where women finally figured prominently. Their labor, however, involved burlesque dancing and circus acts, with a little Salvation Army psalm singing thrown in. Except for a bored subway straphanger with incongruous arm-wrestler muscles, the ladies were enjoying themselves at a revival meeting, the movies and a dance hall, flirting at a soda fountain, and necking on a park bench. Apart from a portrait of Benton’s wife, Rita, holding their son, who raised a hand as if to bless his teacher, the female presence was distinctly déclassé. For that matter, so was the artist’s self-portrait, emerging from the lower right corner of the urban entertainment scene. With his sleeve rolled up to expose a sinewy arm holding a paintbrush, he towered over the seated figure of Johnson—in life a much larger man. Clinking glasses of bootleg whiskey, they toasted the mural’s completion.

  Surprisingly, Benton had remained silent while the group dispersed to study and discuss the various panels. Now he was ready to hold forth.

  “What you see around you,” he began, “is a true portrait of America, the America I know from firsthand experience. Not only the Midwest of my childhood, but the whole shebang, city and country, coast to coast. Before I touched a brush to the canvas, I spent thirty years studying the places and the people you see on these walls. Every square inch is true!” He crossed his arms, and his dark eyes swept the room with the same intensity he had directed toward Laning’s life class, as if daring anyone to contradict him.

  Most of the group remained politely mute, but there were a couple who could not let such a blanket statement go unchallenged. The New School board member, for one.

  “As you no doubt recall, Mr. Benton, there was a lot of controversy when the murals were unveiled.” Benton snickered, but didn’t interrupt. “Critics took you to task for painting too rosy a picture when the economy was in a slump. They said the title should be America Yesterday, not America Today.”

  “Poppycock,” rejoined Benton. He had evidently decided to clean up his language for the occasion. “The picture isn’t all that rosy. Look over there. Didn’t I show a Negro chain gang, and the backbreaking labor of cotton pickers and a dirt farmer stooped over his harrow? Ask them if that’s a rosy picture.” He gestured toward the opposite wall. “Look at the beaten-down coal miners, not only exhausted but now out of work because the mine is on fire. Look at their flimsy houses clinging to a slag heap and tell me that picture is rosy!”

  The board member continued to press. “That doesn’t answer the charge that your overall program depicts prosperity and ignores the very real economic hardships brought on by the Great Depression.”

  Benton jabbed a finger at his challenger. “Don’t forget, sir, that the downturn was barely a year old when these murals were painted. How was I—how was anyone—to know it would become a decade-long economic, social, and political catastrophe? The spirit I captured in these pictures was, I felt, strong enough to get us out of the slump. With hindsight, maybe I was wrong to be so optimistic, but I had faith in the American spirit, and I still do.” He swept his arm around dramatically. “People like these brought us back to prosperity. I believed in these people, and they didn’t let me down!”

  “Why did you make them look so distorted?” came a question from the back. The group turned to look at Ellen, who had voiced what several others thought but didn’t dare say out loud.

  “My, my,” said Benton, cocking an eyebrow and breaking into a grin, “you’re a spunky gal, and a lot prettier than most of my critics. Stuart Davis, the cookie-cutter Cubist, had a face that could stop a clock, and Alfred Stieglitz, a jumped-up Jew from Hoboken, was as ugly as the abstract art he promoted.” Both men were safely dead, so he could insult them with impunity.

  Such ad hominem attacks were routine for Benton, but they shocked his audience, especially his reference to Stieglitz. One onlooker decided not to let it pass.

  “I understand we’ll be treated to a graphic demonstration of your attitude toward Jews when your Arts of Life murals return to the Whitney later this month,” he remarked, prompting a blustering reply from Benton.

  “Nothing against the Hebrew race. Plenty of fine, upstanding citizens among ’em. Why, my own lawyer is a Yid.” Perhaps forgetting where he was, he continued, “Got no time for the pretentious ones, though, the phony intellectuals who run the so-called institutions of higher learning and shove their left-wing philosophy down the students’ throats. Their anti-war rhetoric is poisoning the minds of our young men and undermining the government. Ought to send ’em all back to the commie countries their people came from, see how they like it there.”

  Benton’s tirade had thinned the crowd, several of whom had departed as soon as they heard the word “Yid.” Rather than thank Benton, the board member opted to express appreciation for his time and wish him success with the Whitney show. Then he and the rest of his party retreated, leaving Benton alone in the room with TJ and Ellen.

  “Glad to see not everyone’s afraid of plain talk,” he growled.
“So, spunky gal, is this your boyfriend? Handsome young fella, looks healthy, too. How come he’s not in uniform?”

  “I’m a full-time student at John Jay College,” replied TJ bravely, “training for a career in law enforcement. Someone’s got to keep the peace on the home front.”

  In view of the reservations he had expressed only last week, Ellen was surprised to hear TJ describe his future plans with such certainty. Then she realized he was mollifying Benton to avoid a confrontation. It did the trick. Beaming, the artist strode over and clapped the young man on the shoulder. Once again TJ caught a whiff of alcohol as he exclaimed, “Good for you, sonny! You micks make the best cops.” Turning to Ellen, he condescendingly patted her cheek. “He’ll look even more handsome in blue, dearie. Be a good girl and take him home now. I want to spend some time alone with my old friends here.”

  Benton turned and, swaying slightly, slowly approached the steel-mill panel. “See that big, brawny worker up front?” he said, speaking to the mural rather than to the couple behind him. “That’s Jack Pollock, age eighteen. Strapping lad, like you, sonny. He was too green to be a painting assistant, but he did action posing for me, helped prime the canvases, fetched and carried, never complained. Christ, I loved that boy.”

  Out came the bandanna, and Benton dabbed at his eyes. Quietly, Ellen and TJ left him to his memories.

  Thirteen

  Friday, October 13

  “I guess the preview went smoothly,” said Bill to the others gathered at the lunch table in the League cafeteria. “According to this morning’s Times, the Whitney is still standing, though I gather Benton took the place by storm.” He was sitting with his fellow full-time student Al Schwartz, instructor Charles Alston, whose afternoon life class was due to start at one, and Edward Laning, who would be teaching mural painting at the same time.

  “He was actually very well-behaved,” remarked Alston, who had been at the previous evening’s reception for Benton’s retrospective. “For once he was stone-cold sober, and he stuck to soda water all evening. His wife had him under control. You should have seen him, all duded up in a monkey suit, black tie, cummerbund, the works. I had to chuckle—not to his face, of course. But if he was uncomfortable he didn’t show it. In fact he was eating up the adulation, and Rita was in her glory. She’s the real force behind his success, you know. She handles all the negotiations with the dealers and the bureaucrats who commission his murals. If it were up to him he’d never sell a thing. Doesn’t have the patience to deal with the business end.”

  “Or the temperament,” added Laning, who was also at the opening. “He’s way too volatile. You never know when he might say something to offend the guy who’s writing the check.”

  “Paper says he made a bit of a fuss outside,” said Bill, opening the Times to the story at the top of the society page. Skipping the lede, which recited the who, what, when, and where, he read: “Emerging from a limousine in front of the Whitney’s imposing new building, designed by the Hungarian-American architect Marcel Breuer, Mr. Benton was heard to opine that it looked more like an artillery emplacement than an art museum. ‘I’ve seen prettier prisons,’ he said loudly as he and Mrs. Benton, the former Rita Piacenza, stepped under the concrete canopy that juts out over the Madison Avenue sidewalk.”

  “Shows you he can be just as cantankerous sober as drunk,” said Alston.

  “That’s what I heard from his students, back in the early ’30s,” said Laning. “A few of them transferred to my class, and they told me why. They said he was always sober when he was teaching, but sobriety didn’t improve his disposition. Short-tempered, impatient, foulmouthed, played favorites, that sort of thing. Not everyone’s cup of tea.”

  Schwartz, who was facing the cafeteria entrance, suddenly sat up and stared.

  “Speak of the devil! Damned if Benton didn’t just walk in. I’d better make myself scarce.”

  “Stay put, Al,” said Laning. “He won’t remember you. It was over a week ago that he gave you those helpful pointers, and frankly I doubt if he remembered it the next morning, if you know what I mean.” He rose and went to greet Benton, who was wearing his hillbilly uniform—the plaid lumber jacket, flannel shirt, dungarees, and work boots—and looking around the room somewhat vacantly.

  “Why, Tom, this is a surprise, and a pleasant one,” said Laning affably. “Come on over and set a spell. Charlie and I are off to class soon, but we’d love to hear your impressions of last night’s shindig. With all the admirers crowded around you we couldn’t get near you.”

  “Bunch of fucking brownnoses,” grumbled Benton as he made his way to the table. Unwilling to risk a conversation that might spoil their afternoon, Bill and Al excused themselves and left Benton to the company of his colleagues.

  Alston asked if he’d like coffee and Benton nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Truth be told, I’m a little bit under the weather. When we finally made it back to the hotel, and I got out of that straitjacket Rita made me wear, I headed for the bar. Jesus, I was dyin’ of thirst! ’Fraid I closed the place.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, right?” Laning chided him, while Alston went for the coffee. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you to toast your success. The show is a triumph, Tom. I mean it, no brownnosing. The Whitney has done you proud.”

  “Thanks, Charlie, you’re a lifesaver,” said Benton as Alston placed the mug in front of him. He winced as he sipped the brown liquid. “For Chrissake, you’d think they’d have learned how to brew decent coffee since I was here last, what, thirty years ago. This stuff’s weak as eyewash, just like in the old days. Better add some hair of the dog.” Out came the hip flask, and a healthy dollop of bourbon went into the mug. Benton downed a mouthful of the spiked coffee, sucked his moustache and smacked his lips. “Now it’s got some flavor! Join me, boys?” He offered the flask, but his tablemates demurred.

  “Too early in the day for me, Tom,” said Alston. “Besides, Ed and I have to teach in a half hour or so. Got to be on our toes.”

  Benton grinned, leaned over and, in a friendly way, punched Alston lightly on the arm. “Good for you, Charlie. Keep clean in the classroom, that was always my motto. And here I am leadin’ you down Satan’s path. Shame on me!” His grin widened to a full-blown smile as he took a bigger swallow of the doctored java.

  “Lemme ask you something, Charlie, and no offense meant. I don’t know if you heard it, but at the opening some people were sayin’ that my Arts of the South mural is disrespectful to Negroes because I show ’em shootin’ craps and singin’ spirituals. What do you think?”

  This question put Alston, an African American, on the spot. In Arts of the South, the central figure, life-size, was a barefoot black man surrounded by his family and a pile of trash, his hands clasped prayerfully and his eyes turned to heaven as he sang. To the left, in the middle ground, three black men crouched in the dirt over a dice game. To many viewers, the painting depicted rural Negroes as backward and shiftless.

  Arts of the South was one panel of the Arts of Life in America murals commissioned by the Whitney in 1932. As Laning had told his class, the murals were sold to the New Britain Museum of American Art in 1954 when the Whitney left its original building on West Eighth Street in Greenwich Village and moved to West Fifty-Fourth Street, adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art. All five panels had been lent back to the Whitney for the Benton retrospective.

  Even when they were new the murals were derided as ugly, vulgar, and inept. Critics complained that Benton’s figural distortions and exaggerations created stereotypes rather than the real people he professed to represent. They were especially offended by the wicked caricature of a Jewish intellectual in the lunette panel. The “art forms,” from bronco busting and religious revivalism to poker playing and drinking in a speakeasy, pictured in garish colors, were called crude, gross, and ungracious.

  Well aware of these critiques, Alston personall
y agreed with them. After an early career as a highly regarded figurative painter, he had transitioned to a modernist idiom, in effect going in the opposite direction from Benton. While he was receptive to Benton’s conceptual approach—the fieldwork, the character study from life, the focus on ordinary people and their environments—the overwrought imagery often made him uneasy, especially when the subjects were Negroes, though he had to admit that everyone became equally grotesque when subjected to Benton’s neomannerist stylizations.

  In spite of his reservations, Alston had no desire to argue with Benton. He knew a fishing expedition when he heard one, so he opted for diplomacy.

  “You showed it like it was back in those days, Tom. Black boys did shoot craps—white boys, too, come to that—especially if they had nothing better to do, being out of work like so many were during the Depression. And you can’t blame folks for looking to religion for salvation. That’s all the hope they had before the New Deal came along.”

  Benton took another gulp of his coffee cocktail and nodded emphatically. “Damn right, Charlie! I saw every one of those scenes with my own eyes. Nobody who ain’t been there has the right to tell me they ain’t honest, especially those self-righteous pinkos and simpering homos I left this benighted city to get away from. And I told them so to their faces last night!”

  Fourteen

  Thursday, October 19

  “Have you read the reviews of the Benton show?” asked Bill as he and Al set their canvases on their easels.