Latest / Heavyweight / #47 Frederick J. Brown

Transcript

#47 Frederick J. Brown · Heavyweight

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