Latest / Heavyweight / 2026 Update: Frederick J. Brown

Transcript

2026 Update: Frederick J. Brown · Heavyweight

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Hi.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Hello, Today we're going to revisit an episode that I reported.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: It's called Frederick J.
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: Brown.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: It's about art. It's about a painting.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Amazing. I love art, you know that, right?
• 0:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you're always talking about how much you love art?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Is that true?
• 0:40
  Speaker 6: No?
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't you want to become one of those
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: art bores. Where are we talking about like fine art?
• 0:45
  Speaker 5: Because I thought we were talking about fine art.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: There's all kinds of different art.
• 0:49
  Speaker 5: Well, sure, this is art in a way. This conversation
• 0:51
  Speaker 5: we're having right now.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Well, let's not get crazy.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: I feel like our real dilettante around art. But I
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: do like it.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: You like it?
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: You wouldn't say you love it.
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: I just don't know that I'm knowledgeable enough.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: You don't have to be.
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: Okay, then I guess I love it.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Who do you think loves it more?
• 1:08
  Speaker 7: Me?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Or you?
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: Probably?
• 1:09
  Speaker 7: You?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: Maybe?
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Just because of this is going to sound werud, but
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: you're added years of experience.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Sure, I've had a lot of time of aggling art.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: You know, you might be a surprised to learn that
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: a person like myself, I'm not much of an art
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: snob in the sense that I believe that everybody possesses
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: artistic and creative ability.
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: Well that's beautiful.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Now I'm off my high horse. I'm going to get
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: on my low horse, my show pony, and away we go.
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: Away we go.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Do you know whose catchphrase that was? No a pilot,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Jackie Gleeson?
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: Oh? All right, well, away we go?
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Indeed?
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Oh but first a word from our sponsors.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Every Friday night during the pandemic, I'd get on a
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Google hangout with a group of my boyfriend's friends and
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: we'd all play Mario Kart.
• 2:20
  Speaker 7: Can remind you had a sixteen spread?
• 2:22
  Speaker 8: Again?
• 2:22
  Speaker 7: There was no pam six races.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: These Mario Kart sessions started back in the days when
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: we could barely leave the house due to COVID restrictions,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: so it felt like an escape to log on to
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: carelessly karine in a small car or kart if you will,
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: through a gold mine or off a waterfall. In those
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: dark days, a few minutes on Mount Warrio was the
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: closest thing I could get.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: To a vacation.
• 2:47
  Speaker 9: Right, let's be bad.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: That being said, I also found these Mario Kart hangouts
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: deeply intimidating, because I'm not.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Good at Mario Kart.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: My gameplay mostly sounds like this, no, no, or this.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Along with the Mario karting, there was also non Mario chatting.
• 3:11
  Speaker 6: On Instagram.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Believe birthday and chatting of any kind is another thing
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: I'm not good at. Every so often, I'd weigh in
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: with something like pretty crazy. This was essentially the extent
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: of my engagement until the night Maya told us about
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: the painting. Maya found the painting sitting in a pile
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: of trash on the sidewalk, and it grabbed her instantly.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: It was only later, when she took it home that
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: she saw the artist's signature, Frederick J.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Brown.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Although Maya works in art, the name was unfamiliar to her,
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: so she googled him, and what popped up was a
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: lengthy New York Times obituary from twenty twelve, praising Brown's
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: work and citing Willem du Kooning as an early mentor. Brown,
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: it turned out, was an acclaimed black artist known for
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: his portraits of jazz and blues musicians. He had work
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: in the Smithsonian. As Maya made her way through his biogic,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: she slowly realized that the painting she'd been so instinctively
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: drawn to was actually the work of an important artist,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: and so Maya was left wondering, how did Brown's painting
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: end up in the trash?
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: Oh very regal building.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: On a cold Friday afternoon, I pay Maya visit her
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Brooklyn apartment building to follow up and learn more. And
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: who knows, maybe my boyfriend's friend can simply become a friend. Oh,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: very like regal building.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I feel like.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: My irl chatting is truly no better than my Mario
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Kart chatting, same as it is. Yeah, what I couldn't
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: see on the small square of our Mario Kart calls
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: was that every surface of Maya's apartment is covered art.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Not only has Maya worked in the art world for
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: many years at galleries art publishers, her husband, Wes, is
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: also an artist himself. He even proposed to Maya on
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: the steps of the met There's really only one spot
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: in their apartment that's empty, a blank wall above the couch.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: They'd been waiting year after year for the perfect work
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: of art to hang there, and now with the discovery
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: of the Frederick J. Brown painting, they knew they'd found it.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Maya says she spotted the painting while heading home from
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: a COVID test. It was gigantic, and she still had
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: a mile to walk. She knew it didn't really make
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: sense to take it with her, but she couldn't walk
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: away from it either.
• 5:50
  Speaker 10: I just kept going back to it. It just was
• 5:55
  Speaker 10: different from all of the other paintings I've seen. It
• 5:58
  Speaker 10: just really kind of grabbed me, and I started trying
• 6:03
  Speaker 10: to get it out of the.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: Trash, clutching the huge painting to her body. Maya awkwardly
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: walk the mile home.
• 6:10
  Speaker 10: There's like a little garbage juice at the bottom and
• 6:14
  Speaker 10: a little dust at the top, and I was walking.
• 6:17
  Speaker 10: I wouldn't let it sit on the ground. I know
• 6:21
  Speaker 10: I had probably been on the street all day, but
• 6:23
  Speaker 10: I didn't want it to be on the street anymore.
• 6:31
  Speaker 10: It is nearly as long as I am tall, and
• 6:34
  Speaker 10: I'm by four, lots of color and patterns.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Despite my fondness for the audio medium, it fails to
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: translate the force of Brown's painting. It's not as easily
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: encapsulated as say the Mona Lisa Smiling Woman or American
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Gothic unsmiling woman and man. It's mostly abstract, but then
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: there are these tiny spots with recognizable figures you.
• 6:59
  Speaker 10: Can see faces, and there's these horizontal bands that sort
• 7:04
  Speaker 10: of organize the composition.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Admiring the painting with Maya, it makes me feel like
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: I'm at a fancy party in drawing or jerves, but
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: also panicked that I have nothing intelligent to say.
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: That kind of looks like a seven.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: The painting feels like a stained glass cabinet full of curios.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: It feels like a quilt if a quilt weren't made
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: of fabric, but a fields and buildings and people rushing
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: to work. It feels like a packed room where everybody's dancing.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: I asked Maya to show me where she first found
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: the painting, and so we hit the streets to return
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: to the scene of the trash.
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: So we walk, Yeah, let's walk.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: We take a walk, as friends often do. Maya tells
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: me the painting was in the trash with a bunch
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: of other miscellaneous stuff, a TJ Max planter, a stained
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: toy chest. Whoever disposed of it was probably moving. Maybe
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: a neighbor can tell us who might have moved in
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: the last couple months. But whereas I was picturing a
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: small building with just a few buzzers to ring, it
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: turns out. The trash heap was actually in front of
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: a public housing complex, fourteen stories high, taking up a
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: whole block. We loiter by the building's entrance and I
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: try to catch people as they're going in or out.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Can I ask you something weird and ask you a
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: weird question?
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Anyone who moved out?
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: Like in It's just about a painting that was left
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: outside of painting. Some of my friend found a painting
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: and she's trying to figure out, like what the deal is.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Nobody knows anything.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: No, all right, thank you, no, thank you?
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: No, all right, thank you.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: There's a lot I don't understand about art, like why
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: are frames so expensive? But I can tell you this.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: Paintings they have two sides. There's a side with all
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: the paint on it that people are always tripping over
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: each other to talk about. But then there's the other side,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: the second or backside.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: If you will, do.
• 9:12
  Speaker 10: You want to water, tear or anything?
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Or water would be great.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: And back in Maya's apartment, she explains that on this
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: backside or dari are side, there's another clue. She and
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: West were cleaning the painting off, getting it ready to
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: hang on the wall when they saw it lightly Scrawled
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: on the back of the canvas was an inscription.
• 9:33
  Speaker 10: Painted nineteen seventy nine December title Genesis two Love, Happy
• 9:39
  Speaker 10: Birthday from Frederick to Lowry Simms, and then he signed
• 9:44
  Speaker 10: it and dated it in nineteen seventy nine.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: Maya may not have known the name Frederick Brown, but
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: she knew the name Lowry Simms quite well. Larry was
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: the president of the Studio Museum in Harlem, and before
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: that she'd been the first black curator at the Metropolitan
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: Museum of Art. She's now in her seventies and has
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: had decades of him packed on the art world.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: She's reached living legends status.
• 10:13
  Speaker 10: You can't help but be like, oh, okay, yeah, should
• 10:18
  Speaker 10: I have not used a paper towel to clean this?
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: The way Maya sees it, if you find something with
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: someone else's name on it, whether that's a wallet, a cat,
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: or a painting, you try to give it back to them.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: And so she wants to return the painting to its
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: rightful owner, Lowry Simms. And once we find her, maybe
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Lowry can help piece together how the painting ended up
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: in the garbage. I would like love to help try
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: and get in touch.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: With this person.
• 10:47
  Speaker 9: Yes, please.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: Okay, my garbage hunting an abject failure, but my people
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: hunting that's going to be an abject success. I can't
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: find an email address for Lowry, so I do what
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: we all do when we want to pester someone more
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: important than we are.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I send a message on LinkedIn.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: I explain that I have a painting I think belongs
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: to her, but perhaps fearing I'm running some sort of
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: con where I trade paintings for Social Security numbers, Lowry doesn't.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Respond, Hi, how are you?
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: I need some.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Sort of inroad.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: So I contact an artist named Chloe Bass, who's worked
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: with Lowry.
• 11:32
  Speaker 10: I don't know why she would even need LinkedIn, it's
• 11:36
  Speaker 10: like her career is very well stablished.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Chloe is also confused by how the painting ended up
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: in the trash. She says Lowry can't have been the
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: one to throw it away because Lowry doesn't live in
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: Brooklyn and never has. Chloe agrees to reach out to
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: her on my behalf and now that the request isn't
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: coming from Rando on LinkedIn, but Aranda, who knows Chloe Bass,
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Lowry responds, we have a few back and forths over email.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: I'm hoping to schedule a time for us to talk
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: on the phone, but Lowry is reluctant. She tells me
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: she doesn't want to talk unless she can see a
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: photo of the painting first. So I send her a photo,
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: saying I'd be curious if she recognizes Genesis Too, and
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: equally curious if she doesn't. Who knows. Maybe Brown's gift
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: of the painting never even reached her. The next morning,
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: Lowry writes back quote intriguing period That is the extent
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: of her email, and after that her correspondence comes to
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: a halt. Intriguing period. What did Lowry Simms's email mean.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: It's not the response you'd expect of someone recognizing a beloved,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: long lost painting. I start to wonder if maybe the
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: painting is a fake. Genesis Too doesn't look like any
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: of the other Frederick Brown paintings I've seen online. Maybe
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: Lowry's intriguing means an intriguing forgery. So I contact Frederick
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: Brown's trust. I figure they'll know best if the painting's
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: really his, and five days later I get confirmation that
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: the painting is legit. I receive a call from a
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: man named Bentley, who teaches at Fordham and is a
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: PhD candidate at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts. Bentley
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: is also it turns out, Frederick J. Brown's son.
• 13:46
  Speaker 6: So here's the backstory. Yeah, the painting is part of
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: a larger painting called Genesis. Okay, that's in the collection
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: of the MET.
• 13:56
  Speaker 7: Oh.
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: WHOA, I didn't know that.
• 13:57
  Speaker 6: So my dad became the youngest artist to be in
• 14:00
  Speaker 6: the collection of the Met at that time.
• 14:01
  Speaker 7: So I get thirty three.
• 14:03
  Speaker 6: Geez, let's say think that actually thirty.
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: Four okay, and like on that right as a black artist.
• 14:13
  Speaker 6: So Part one is at the MET.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Part one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Part two
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: in a trash heap on a Brooklyn sidewalk. Bentley can't
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: wait to see his father's painting in person, so he
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: makes the drive from the Bronx to Maya's apartment in Brooklyn.
• 14:36
  Speaker 6: Hi.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: And I'm hoping maybe Bentley will have insight into how
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: his dad's painting ended up in the trash. Should we
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: look at this painting and then maybe we can talk?
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love to.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: We all file into the living room, where Maya and
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: her husband West have propped the painting up against a
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: wall for Bentley to look at Bentley takes it in.
• 15:05
  Speaker 6: This is amazing. It's just like, this makes me so happy.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: This is your first time.
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I've never seen this.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: Bentley's dedicated years of his life to his father's work,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: but he can't tell me how the painting ended up
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: in the trash. Before I reached out, he hadn't even
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: known Genesis Too existed. He bends down to get a
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: closer look.
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: He didn't just stumble upon any piece within his catalog.
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: He stumbled upon a extremely important piece.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: It turns out the Genesis two was painted at the
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: moment when Brown was making a transition. That's why it
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: looks so different than anything else I'd seen online. Brown
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: was moving away from abstraction and towards more figurative work.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: So among the shapes and lines, you see faces, an
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: airplane and.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: The fox figure, and it's like a self portrait.
• 15:59
  Speaker 10: Do you know why your dad chose fox as a
• 16:02
  Speaker 10: symbol of representation.
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: That's a good question.
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: You have to be a fox to survive in the
• 16:07
  Speaker 6: art world as a black man, have to be. Everybody
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: looks at the fox as like like a nefarious sort
• 16:14
  Speaker 6: of character, right, But my dad kind of looked at
• 16:16
  Speaker 6: it as like, nah, that's just like, that's just a
• 16:18
  Speaker 6: cad that has to do whatever has to do to survive.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Bentley tells us about his dad's life, about Frederick Brown's
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: childhood on the South Side of Chicago, how Brown's dad
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: managed to juke joint, hanging around blues musicians like Muddy Waters.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Early on, color made a strong impression on Brown. He
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: grew up mixing paint for the luxury cars his uncle
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: worked on. Later, Brown found work in the steel mills,
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: the colors of the hot metal burning their way into
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: his mind.
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: Because he'd always talked about how like bright orange the
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: ingots were. You can see the bright orange in there.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Brown attended college in Illinois and eventually moved to New York,
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: where he set up shop in a huge loft on
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Worcester Street and soho other artists and musicians are always
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: stopping by for Mayor Bearden, BB King, John Lennon, and
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Yoko Ono. The Western Street loft is where Brown painted Genesis.
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: So then after that he signed with Marlboro Gallery, and
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: so that was a big deal because Marlboro Gallery was
• 17:22
  Speaker 6: the hottest gallery at that time. We talk about like
• 17:25
  Speaker 6: Basque Yacht being the first black artist to sort of
• 17:28
  Speaker 6: make that break. It was really my dad, like, I'm
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: not even gonna hold you like I'm I'm not going
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: to I'm not going to sugarcoat it, you know.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: But while Bosquia went on to become a household name
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: selling paintings for millions of dollars, Frederick J. Brown did not.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: So what happened. It turns out that even after signing
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: with Marlborough, Brown wasn't being shown and the way he
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: thought he should be.
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: My dad kept trying to get like a retrospective and
• 17:55
  Speaker 6: couldn't get a retrospective anywhere.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: So Brown took matters into his own hands when a
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Taiwanese artist named C. J. Yao invited him to come
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: to China. It was nineteen eighty eight and communist China
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: was just starting to culturally open up. Only one other
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: American artist, Robert Rauschenberg, had shown work in the country.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: But together Brown and Yao decided, let's do a Frederick J.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: Brown retrospective in China.
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: And they decided to do it in the National Museum
• 18:28
  Speaker 6: of China, which like is on Tienamen Square and it's
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: like an insanely huge building.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: The museum had been filled with relative Chairman Mao and
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: the Communist Revolution. But all that was cleared out to
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: make room for one hundred Frederick J. Brown paintings.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: And he had a lot.
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: I mean, he had sixty thousand people a day for
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: like thirty days.
• 18:51
  Speaker 10: Wow.
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: He had to go to China to have a red.
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: He had to go to China to be seen as
• 18:58
  Speaker 6: an American.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: Artist because in America, Brown was seen as a black artist.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: And despite what he accomplished in China, when he returned
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: to the States, he hadn't earned any additional prestige.
• 19:11
  Speaker 6: Instead, Marlborough was pissed that he did the show because
• 19:15
  Speaker 6: they did it without his without their consent. He took
• 19:18
  Speaker 6: out a loan to do it himself of half a
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: million dollars. He had no way of paying it back.
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: So that was like the beginning of I don't want
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: to say the end, but it was the beginning of
• 19:30
  Speaker 6: like a real hardship.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: Marlborough dropped him. The bank was trying to take all
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: his work, which he'd put up as collateral. He was
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: only able to save some paintings by erasing his name
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: entirely so the bank would think they weren't his. Other
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: paintings he hid in the walls of his Worcester Street loft.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Brown continued to paint for the rest of his life,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: but he never regained that blue trip cachet from his
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: early career. He didn't become a name that a non
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: art person like me, or even an art person like
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: Maya would immediately recognize. Brown died of cancer in twenty twelve,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: and ten years later, Bentley's frustrated that his father still
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: doesn't have his rightful place in the cannon.
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: You go up to these people that are gatekeepers and
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: you plead your case. Most people are just like, eh, whatever,
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: there's not a market for it right now, right and
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: it's it's like, man, fuck you.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: It's the same story for a lot of black artists. Sure,
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: these gatekeepers want black art, Bentley says that they want
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: a particular kind of black art. They want art they
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: can look at and go, ah, yes, I get it.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: This is about the politics of being black in America.
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: When we think about black art or black artists, right,
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: we are very quick to add like a political tag
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: to the thing. I mean, I guess you could argue
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: that blackness in and of itself is a political thing.
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: But my dad was kind of much more of the
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: camp of like just like make art for art's sake.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: But purely aesthetic work by a black art. That's what
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: ends up in the garbage.
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: It's such a painful feeling. It's such a yeah, painful
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: is the word. And such a painful feeling when you
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: know that, like you have such a special world and
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: people don't give a shit.
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: What is I mean?
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Like if you have to describe, like what what that
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: special world was?
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: Like?
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: What how would you explain it?
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: Bentley points at the painting still leaning against the wall?
• 21:39
  Speaker 9: Is that right?
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: There?
• 21:42
  Speaker 6: So much color, so much emotion, so much beauty. You
• 21:50
  Speaker 6: you two recognized it. The beanting definitely called to me. Yeah,
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: I mean you rescued it right like, and it's like
• 21:57
  Speaker 6: a piece of my dad. It's like his energy, his
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: spirit is him. You know. That was my dad calling
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: out to you. That's what that was.
• 22:06
  Speaker 7: Like.
• 22:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah, don't let me go in the trash. Yeah, my
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: son lives not too far away. Don't let me go
• 22:16
  Speaker 6: in the trash.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Well, Bentley was able to trace the path that led
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Frederick Brown's work to the metaphorical trash heap. I'm still
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: wondering about the literal trash heap, the one on a
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: Brooklyn sidewalk, And so, of course I'm still wondering about
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Larry Simms. It turns out Bentley knows Lowry well. The
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: two are even writing a book together. When I ask
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Bentley about Lowry's aversion to speaking with me, he alludes
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: to some bad experiences she's had with journalists, but he
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: reassures me that he'll put in a good word. And
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: the next morning, Bentley calls to tell me that Lowry
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: is willing to talk. There's just one caveat. She doesn't
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: want to discuss how the painting wound up in the garbage.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: It's hard for me to figure out why. And I
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: don't really know how to do an interview about a
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: painting that ended up in the trash without asking how
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: the painting ended up in the trash. So I crossed
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: my fingers that something might shift. Once we're on the phone,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Larry takes my call from her condo in Baltimore. She
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: tells me that she met Frederick Brown when she was
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: around thirty, a newly minted curator at the Met. As
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: a curator, Lowry's mission was to champion the work of
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: overlooked artists. Larry herself knew what it was like to
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: be overlooked.
• 23:45
  Speaker 8: I mean I was in, you know, as this black
• 23:47
  Speaker 8: girl from Queens. I had a career nobody would have
• 23:50
  Speaker 8: expected at that time. I was in places where nobody
• 23:55
  Speaker 8: expected at the time. I mean I used to tell people.
• 23:58
  Speaker 8: One of the most amusing things for me was to
• 24:02
  Speaker 8: go to a collector on Park Avenue in the seventies
• 24:07
  Speaker 8: and get to the front door and Dorman would try
• 24:10
  Speaker 8: to sort of scoop me around to the service entrance
• 24:13
  Speaker 8: because they assumed it was a housekeeper or something, you know,
• 24:17
  Speaker 8: and new I'm you know, sends from the Metropolitan Museum.
• 24:24
  Speaker 8: You want to see the face change, you know, they go, oh,
• 24:28
  Speaker 8: you know. It was a struggle to get past the
• 24:36
  Speaker 8: ignorance about black artists.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Like once in the seventies Larry organized because a bit
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: of black art from the METS collection.
• 24:44
  Speaker 8: And when we got the exhibition up, I was approached
• 24:47
  Speaker 8: by a journalist who said, I didn't even know they
• 24:50
  Speaker 8: were black artists. Now this is like nineteen seventy nine.
• 24:53
  Speaker 8: Come on, jeez, yeah, yeah, yeah, So I say, where
• 24:58
  Speaker 8: we've been around since the late eighteen.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Hundred, hearing this story, it starts to make sense why
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: Lowry might have been reluctant to speak with me, a
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: white like journalists she's never met. In fact, when I
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: spoke with Bentley, he said Lowry had wanted him to
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: suss me out, to make sure that I was okay,
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: before she agreed to talk to me. Like his dad,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: Bentley said, Lowry too has had to be a fox.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Larry and Brown's friendship endured for decades, starting in that
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Worcester Street loft and lasting until Brown's death, And even
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: after he died, Lowry continued to engage with Brown's work.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Just last summer, she helped put together a big posthumous
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: show of his art at the Barry Campbell Gallery in Manhattan.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Like Bentley, she wants Brown to finally get his due.
• 25:51
  Speaker 8: It's a regional work, you know, it's strong work. I'm
• 25:57
  Speaker 8: just hopeful that, you know, Frederick gets written into the
• 26:02
  Speaker 8: you know, the art lexicon in the way that he
• 26:04
  Speaker 8: needs to be.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: When I ask Lowry why this hasn't happened yet Bentley,
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: she cites the aftermath of the China trip, but she
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: also offers this.
• 26:14
  Speaker 8: He sort of left New York at a crucial period
• 26:17
  Speaker 8: in his career, and he put the concerns of his
• 26:20
  Speaker 8: family first.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: And it's true. In the nineties, Brown left New York
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: for a town called Carefree, Arizona. A big factor in
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: that decision was his daughter's asthma. Brown knew the dry
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: desert heat would be good for her, and although money
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: was still tight, the family was happy out in Arizona.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Bentley recalls his dad attending his flag football games in
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: his signature White Brooks Brothers suit, sweating in the Arizona
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: son and dabbing his forehead with napkins. Well, some children
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: of famous artists remember locked studio doors. Bentley remembers his
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: dad's welcoming studio couch, where he'd flopped down after school
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: and talk about his day while his father painted. All
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: of which is to say Bentley remembers Brown as a
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: good dad. As Lowry and I talk, I do my
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: best to avoid the whole painting and the trash thing.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: So we discussed her time at the met Brown's jazz portraits,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: the similarities between Genesis one and two. But then, without prompting,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Lowry volunteers this, I.
• 27:29
  Speaker 8: Mean, I sort of, like, you know, kind of figured
• 27:31
  Speaker 8: out that I probably gazed the painting to someone who
• 27:35
  Speaker 8: admired it. You know, I can't remember who because it
• 27:38
  Speaker 8: you know, because it was certainly too big for my
• 27:41
  Speaker 8: low apartment.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: As it turns out, Brown had painted Lowry Genesis two
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: as a thank you gift because she had been the
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: curator who bought Genesis one for the Mets collection. But
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: the painting was huge, and Lowry ran into the problem
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: that so many New Yorkers do. Living in a cramped
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: apartment on the Upper east Side, she just hadn't had
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: space for it. For Lowry, there was no blank wall
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: above the couch, just waiting for something to be hung.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: She found Genesis to a good home with a friend
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: who loved it.
• 28:13
  Speaker 8: And I think I told Fred, you know, like about it. Yeah,
• 28:16
  Speaker 8: how it ended up with Amya fined it? I don't know.
• 28:20
  Speaker 8: I just can't remember who I might have given it to.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: I suspect that Lowry might be trying to protect a friend.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Maybe that's why she had been reluctant to talk about
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: the painting's loss. Maybe Larry gave the painting to someone
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: who moved to a smaller apartment themselves, or maybe they
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: died or fell on hard times and decided to sell it.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Maybe it was regifted to someone else, or sold in
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: a state sale, or just lost in the general shuffle
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: of life. No matter what, the end result is the same. Ultimately,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: someone looked at it thought this isn't worth keeping and
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: threw it away. All of that, it seems, was wrapped
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: up and Lowry's intriguing. Does it make you sad at
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: all to think of art just in the trash like that?
• 29:06
  Speaker 8: Well, you know, there's a saying that ninety eight percent
• 29:11
  Speaker 8: of all the art created in the world since the
• 29:16
  Speaker 8: beginning is gone.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Do you think like the best stuff somehow makes it through?
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: Do you know what I mean?
• 29:23
  Speaker 8: I think it's totally random. I mean, I guess that's
• 29:26
  Speaker 8: why we have museums, you know, because they can be
• 29:29
  Speaker 8: seen as places where these things can be safe. But
• 29:32
  Speaker 8: I mean this book that was happening now in the Ukraine,
• 29:36
  Speaker 8: you know, the palming museums and cultural sites. So I
• 29:39
  Speaker 8: think a lot of times it's just the luck of
• 29:42
  Speaker 8: the draw.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Time is the most capricious of curators. A few weeks earlier,
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: when Bentley came by Maya's apartment, we all sat around
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: and talked for hours about art and family, and finally,
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: when it was time to go, Maya turned to Bentley
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: and said, I don't think the painting belongs with me.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: I think it belongs somewhere else. Bentley's taller than Maya
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: and had no problem lifting up the canvas. He thanked
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Maya warmly and carried Genesis two out the door to
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: his car. He'd serve as the paintings caretaker until Lowry
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: decided what she wanted to do. Can you tell me
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: sort of like, what's happening to it now? Do you
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: know where it's going?
• 30:33
  Speaker 8: Yeah, it's been accepted by the Studio Museum as a donation.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Oh that's great, and the donation will be from me,
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: from the estate of the artists, and from Maya.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: On a warm Friday afternoon, I pay Maya visit her
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: Regal apartment building.
• 30:55
  Speaker 7: Hello.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: She and Wes are signing the paperwork to officially donate
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: the painting to the Studio Museum, and I'm here to
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: serve as a witness. Lowry and Bentley have both already signed.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Knowing how much Maya loves the painting, I thought giving
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: it up would be bittersweet, but she's in high spirits.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: She likes the idea of Genesis too hanging in a museum.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: That way, thousands of people will get to enjoy it.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: We'll lean towards the plaque and read the name Frederick J. Brown.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Who knows what that name might mean to people in
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: the future, if time will strengthen Brown's legacy or wash
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: it away. But for now, we finish up the paperwork
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: and all cheers a shot at tequila to celebrate, as
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: friends often do.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Cheers thank you.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: On my way out, I noticed that the big wall
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: above Maya's couch is still blank.
• 32:16
  Speaker 9: Now that the fernitures returning to its goodwill home, now
• 32:26
  Speaker 9: that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage
• 32:31
  Speaker 9: with pos take this moment to des.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: If we mentain, if we.
• 32:38
  Speaker 9: Talk felt around from far to.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: From things that accidentally.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Hello Jonathan Khalila, Yeah, Hi, Hi, what's going on?
• 33:02
  Speaker 7: I'm in the studio museum at the moment.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Oh thank god. When I heard you whispering like that,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: I figured immediate that you were incarcerated somehow.
• 33:11
  Speaker 7: Why would I need to whisper?
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: It would be more likely that I'd been kidnapped and
• 33:17
  Speaker 7: was secretly using a phone, you know what I mean?
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Like from the trunk of a car. Yeah, okay, few,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad you're in a museum instead. Why are
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: you in a museum.
• 33:27
  Speaker 7: I'm in a museum because the studio museum is where
• 33:31
  Speaker 7: Frederick J. Brown's painting Genesis. To end it up, the
• 33:37
  Speaker 7: painting is not up at the moment, but there are
• 33:40
  Speaker 7: a couple galleries dedicated to like cycling things out that
• 33:45
  Speaker 7: are in the permanent collection. Uh huh, so I imagine it
• 33:48
  Speaker 7: will hang in one of those galleries soon.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Ah. So you think it's in a storage room.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: I don't really know how museums work, but yeah, they
• 33:57
  Speaker 7: must have some kind of art storage. Right.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Well, here's your chance to find out. I'm going to
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: put you on assignment here. Okay, do you see any
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: any doors that say staff only or do not enter?
• 34:09
  Speaker 7: I'm standing by one right now.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Do you want to try the doorknob?
• 34:12
  Speaker 7: Let me just see.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Is it locked?
• 34:16
  Speaker 7: Yeah? It's locked.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Well, so much for our big art heist. Well how
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: does it feel? I guess to know that it's it's
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: in its rightful place, and you had you had a
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: hand in that.
• 34:28
  Speaker 7: That's cool, actually, I mean, even though it's not up
• 34:30
  Speaker 7: right now, just to be like, oh, this is its
• 34:33
  Speaker 7: home and it's among all this other art, and like
• 34:36
  Speaker 7: there's a lot of people at the museum. Oh really,
• 34:38
  Speaker 7: I feel like people are going to be able to
• 34:40
  Speaker 7: come and appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say,
• 34:43
  Speaker 7: not to presume, but are you in front of a computer?
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I am?
• 34:46
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: Would you like to go to the Studio Museum website
• 34:50
  Speaker 7: and look up Frederick J. Brown in the.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Coluction Studio Museum Frederick. There we go. Let's see. Oh
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: he there's three of his works here.
• 35:03
  Speaker 7: Oh nice?
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: And here we are, yeah, Genesis two. And you know
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: what what it is? Vertical?
• 35:15
  Speaker 7: I know I noticed that too. I was like, maybe
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: we were looking at it the wrong way.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: I think we were. Yeah, And honestly, looking at it
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: like this, it's like looking at a whole different painting.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: It does the way you see it, I know, and
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: you know, in a way it kind of makes more sense.
• 35:34
  Speaker 10: Wow.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Huh.
• 35:36
  Speaker 7: I am so serious how they even determined that, because
• 35:40
  Speaker 7: I feel like when I was looking at it with Bentley,
• 35:42
  Speaker 7: he also thought it went horizontally.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: He did.
• 35:45
  Speaker 7: Yeah, And I did speak with Bentley recently too, and
• 35:51
  Speaker 7: he gave me some updates about what's going on with
• 35:55
  Speaker 7: his father's work.
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: Of the updates and the major update though, is that
• 36:00
  Speaker 6: we do have a retrospective of his work.
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: Oh you do.
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's going to be opening in twenty twenty eight.
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: Okay at the Phoenix our museum. Great and yeah again,
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: I just can't thank you enough for taking on the
• 36:14
  Speaker 6: story like it brought us so much publicity and then
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: you know, we had several major exhibitions after that.
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: Oh that's great. Well, thank you Bentley for talking. It's
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: really nice to talk to you again.
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: Thanks so much.
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: Talk to you later, talk to you sad.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Thanks to everyone who helped put this episode together. If
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: you haven't already heard, and I can't imagine how you haven't,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: We've started a free newsletter, have you, Khi La Holt
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: heard about our free newsletter?
• 36:54
  Speaker 8: Yes?
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: In fact, I've I've written stuff in it.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Oh that's going to look great on your resume. That
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: sounds like a threat. Are I fired?
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Not at all?
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying, you know, kudos to you. That's a
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: publication right there. So all of which to say, go
• 37:14
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• 37:18
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• 37:22
  Speaker 2: two weeks time.