Thanks, Alison. Here's another, one of my favorites. Bio of a time, I
think, as well as a person - someone I knew long ago, in Chicago.
Arthur
Though he took all the courses and later sat
at the feet of Moholy-Nagy and other
local refugee greats, he never learned
to draw. Some lithos in *New Masses* -
a rag hanging from a nail, some blocky
sharecroppers one couldn't see as moving -
and buttocks or biceps that had to be redone
by the comrade in charge of that mural
defined his early style. The Army
neglected his talent; he inventoried
parts for three years in Georgia
after turning down a chance to run
errands for a two-star friend of his father's.
But the stipend continued, and Rachel, whom
he had married when he didn't go to Spain,
kept up the studio, and parties, which
she wrote him about, and meetings with the Old Man
(which were left undescribed, but assumed).
As she toured the Gary plant or charmed the cronies,
she saw herself checking off the Old Man's
four items - his ulcer, the enterprising nature
of Arthur's younger brother, Arthur's complete lack
of talent (this was an article of faith, not
knowledge), and, occasionally, awkwardly,
the fate of Rachel's family in Europe -
as Arthur checked off batteries and axles.
They may have thought, in '49 or '50,
about New York, but he had a name in Chicago
and the largest studio in a famous old building -
its central garden like another world,
its wide dim hallways smelling of turps - and then,
of course, there was her miscarriage, as,
earlier, the news of the camps … She aged abruptly;
but Arthur retained his matinee-idol looks
and thought about Abstract Expressionism,
feeling his way painstakingly towards relying
on impulse, trance, hunch, for none of which,
unfortunately, had he any flair.
His father died, and Rachel wept at the service.
By the early 50s, he found it. A palette of greens,
turquoises, greys, sporadic specks
of orange, and yellow rays. A sprayer and tape, no
brushes. A stylized modern city from
a distance, below, within, rectangles variously
merging but with always the same effect.
A six-foot square of canvas looming
over the parquet floor and Turkish rugs,
and always someone sipping at a drink
to mention Feininger or maybe Albers.
(But it wasn't until the 70s, after
Rachel had died, that Arthur paid
an assistant prof to write a book about him.)
At times, as she cooked and chatted with guests,
he would stare down into the atrium - trying
on winter nights to see past his reflection,
in summer twilights taking in the scents.
It wasn't affectation: from the salon
you couldn't see the place where he was standing
unless, like me (I was eight at the time
and there with his friend, my father),
you explored the dustier corners.
In retrospect I recognize that look.
I want to thank them for their kindness -
milk; the two dachshunds; pleasant passing words -
and in some way to rescue him for art.
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