INTERLUDE
Fake Antiques
I left Columbia after the first semester of my fourth year. I had by then completed the required number of courses for a BA degree with a major in art history, along with many classes of literature. Indeed I chose Columbia over art-focused schools like Pratt and Cooper Union for its excellent liberal arts reputation.
I got a job painting fake antiques on panels made of pine shelving and plywood at a funky walk-up workshop on 19th Street near 6th Ave. in New York City. It was the workshop for Karl Mann Associates. Karl had people making seed mosaics and hand-made wallpaper with designs such as stamped prints using half grapefruits.
My group’s specialty was painting “hope chest covers” in the style of Pennsylvania Dutch or other early American fork art, adapted from sources like American Heritage Magazine. These were all hand-painted works, often produced in series of 4 or 6 panels at a time on long tables, using pounced paper to transfer the patterns of the master painting to the fresh boards. We painted scenes of hay wagons and animals, fruit bowls, and primitive portraits, all in water-based tempera. These pieces were then “distressed”: drilled to suggest fake “wormholes”, whipped with chains to create dings in the surface, and finally painted over with a brown wash to create an aged look. The finished pieces were not represented as real antiques, but were sold to decorators or stores like Macy’s as what they indeed were, hand-made paintings in the manner of old art.
One guy in the shop had been on an art fellowship in Europe, I think it was a Guggenheim, and he was painting clipper ships. Another painter designed “modern” works in a decorative manner, which were then copied in multiples. Some very talented people worked at Karl Mann’s, and I learned a lot.
One special project was for the fake walls of a showroom in Bloomingdale’s, set up for a Renaissance furniture display. I remember painting scenes with people and dogs in the Venetian style, copying details of works by Carpaccio and others. It was like painting a stage set, but on plywood sheets. I felt like I was an apprentice in an old studio, and as poorly paid. It was fun.
Fake Antiques
I left Columbia after the first semester of my fourth year. I had by then completed the required number of courses for a BA degree with a major in art history, along with many classes of literature. Indeed I chose Columbia over art-focused schools like Pratt and Cooper Union for its excellent liberal arts reputation.
I got a job painting fake antiques on panels made of pine shelving and plywood at a funky walk-up workshop on 19th Street near 6th Ave. in New York City. It was the workshop for Karl Mann Associates. Karl had people making seed mosaics and hand-made wallpaper with designs such as stamped prints using half grapefruits.
My group’s specialty was painting “hope chest covers” in the style of Pennsylvania Dutch or other early American fork art, adapted from sources like American Heritage Magazine. These were all hand-painted works, often produced in series of 4 or 6 panels at a time on long tables, using pounced paper to transfer the patterns of the master painting to the fresh boards. We painted scenes of hay wagons and animals, fruit bowls, and primitive portraits, all in water-based tempera. These pieces were then “distressed”: drilled to suggest fake “wormholes”, whipped with chains to create dings in the surface, and finally painted over with a brown wash to create an aged look. The finished pieces were not represented as real antiques, but were sold to decorators or stores like Macy’s as what they indeed were, hand-made paintings in the manner of old art.
One guy in the shop had been on an art fellowship in Europe, I think it was a Guggenheim, and he was painting clipper ships. Another painter designed “modern” works in a decorative manner, which were then copied in multiples. Some very talented people worked at Karl Mann’s, and I learned a lot.
One special project was for the fake walls of a showroom in Bloomingdale’s, set up for a Renaissance furniture display. I remember painting scenes with people and dogs in the Venetian style, copying details of works by Carpaccio and others. It was like painting a stage set, but on plywood sheets. I felt like I was an apprentice in an old studio, and as poorly paid. It was fun.
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Painted plywood panels for Bloomingdale's showroom. 1960