David Mesple’ Final Project:
Beginnings/Works-in-Progress
My approach to this course took many
tangents. I finally decided to research the practices surrounding the
sales and treatment of artists who have developmental disabilities and mental
illnesses, having cared for a developmentally disabled family member for
decades, I have found a direction that I am eager to explore.
I am interested in researching the ethics
and consequences of marketing and evaluating the artwork of developmentally
disabled and mentally ill artists. A
historical analysis would be quite difficult since there were few effective
treatments for the mentally ill until the end of the 19th Century. The developmentally disabled were usually
turned into servants or given menial and often degrading jobs, or used as court
accoutrements as in Valasquez’s “Las Meninas”.
I have selected 3 modern artists to research. I will examine their art, their lives,
treatment, and contrast how their work was marketed. They are:
Alonzo
Clemons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oEwt40SAeU#t=83 , is a
savant who, as a child, suffered a devastating left-brain injury. He was
found sculpting (with remarkable accuracy) any animal he had seen at the Denver
Zoo or any 2-D image of an animal which he has the remarkable ability to
translate into an accurate 3-D manifestation.
Interestingly, he cannot do this with human figures. His first
medium was warm tar from the rooftop outside his childhood bedroom. When later deprived of clay to force him to
learn to comb his hair and dress, he used putty from his bedroom window in a
residential living facility that he lived in for eleven years. He was
institutionalized until he was able to support himself by the work of his hands
through a part-time job as an artist, and has had a legal advocate for 20
years. His work is represented by
Gifted Hands in Boulder CO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-j3lMjfh5E
Martin
Ramirez, a schizophrenic
who was found walking the streets of Los Angeles, incoherent, at the age of
30. He spent the next half of his life
in the DeWitt Mental Hospital, a state-run California facility, where he was
“discovered” by a psychologist who was one of my professors. I have been corresponding with Brooke Davis
Anderson, author of “Martin Ramirez: The Last Works” with contributions by
Wayne Thiebaud and Richard Rodriguez.
Because I was aware of Ramirez’ work before it was ever marketed, I am
aware of the ethical difficulties this presented. His work was represented by the Phyllis Kind
Gallery in Chicago, and now his family has control of some of his work.
Finally, I am interested in the
controversy surrounding the later work of Willem
DeKooning who suffered from severe Alzheimer’s Disease starting in the
1980’s until his death in 1997. DeKooning's
paintings became more spare and haiku-like, allusive rather than expository.
When word got around that the artist was in mental decline, suspicions gained
ground in the notoriously gossipy art circles that family members and studio
assistants conspired to put as many canvases before de Kooning as possible to
enrich his estate. A comparison of his
pre- and post-onset Alzheimer’s will be made.
Alonzo Clemons
is a compulsive artist, whose advocate of 20 years, Nancy
Mason, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCmsuXbjGBY#t=308
serves as a principle officer of the corporation that was set up to take care
of Alonzo’s financial affairs. Prior to
9/11, Alonzo was represented by a gallery in Vail, Colorado, which did not remain
solvent during the recession that followed.
Ms Mason was reluctant to speak about this period in Alonzo’s
professional life, but the impression I got from her was that Alonzo’s
relationship with this gallery benefitted the gallery more than it did
Alonzo. Sadly, this is often the case
for artists who have no disabilities whatsoever. The standard commission in the U.S. is 50% of
the sale price goes to the gallery and the rest goes to the artist. If, however, a licensed buyer purchases the
art for a collector, the licensed buyer gets 20% of the purchase price as their
commission and the gallery splits the remaining 80% with the artist.
No matter what the conditions of the
contract Alonzo had with this gallery, he was not benefiting from his sales and
the benefits provided in our society for labor.
He survived on SSDI Social
Security Disability Insurance from one of his relatives, because like many
disabled people, he had no work history .
And as a self-employed artist making a meager living, he was denied
certain benefits that were due him.
With the help of the non-profit Colorado Lawyers for the Arts, a
corporation was established by lawyer Patty Dow to represent Alonzo’s work,
give him an income, and allow him to accrue Social Security and retirement
benefits. Nancy Mason and one of
Alonzo’s relatives are principle officers in that corporation, “Gifted Hands”,
though Ms Mason alluded to a change in the corporate structure coming soon.
The Gifted Hands corporation covers the
costs of casting Alonzo’s limited edition works in bronze, provides him a
salary, and covers the costs of shipping and marketing his art. Except for additional legal fees, corporate
taxes, and a tax license to do business, the corporation does not take monies
that Alonzo has earned. Nancy is very
protective of Alonzo as his advocate, and involves him in all decisions that
will affect his work and income. He is
absented from the legal and business hassles associated with being an artist in
all other respects. All artists should
be so lucky!
Alonzo’s work is now represented by two
Denver Galleries. Art of Life, operated
by Ken Knudsen, takes a substantially reduced commission for the sales of
Alonzo’s work. Access Gallery, which is
sponsored by VSA- a national non-profit set up to sponsor the work of disabled
people, also represents his work with a minimal (or no?) commission on
sales. The purpose of VSA
– which started out as Very Special Arts – is "to provide people of
all ages living with disabilities the opportunity to learn through, participate
in and enjoy the arts." VSA was established in 1974 by Jean Kennedy Smith
and is now operated as part of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in
Washington, D.C. This organization, along with the Gifted
Hands Corporation, allow Alonzo to live a nearly independent life, except for
aspects of life that he is not able to fully manage which Nancy Mason takes
care of.
Alonzo’s savantism is connected to memory in idiosyncratic ways. He remembers the first and last names of young people who were cared for in the Delta, Colorado facility where he spent eleven years of his life. He also has a knack for song lyrics, which he incorporates into his conversation skills. His speech therapists describe him as having “very high communicative intent”, which means that he knows what he wants to say and will work very hard to be understood. Nancy Mason related that Alonzo will not let her go until she has fully understood is intentions, even when his speech usage is challenging to listeners.
In addition to
sculpting animals, Alonzo is interested in rodeo imagery and drawing in
pastels. In these arenas, his savantism is not evident. He has to learn how to sculpt the human form
just as anyone else would. His pastels
are stylistically very different from his animal sculptures, and he has to work
on those skills, also. Alonzo has a
dream of making “big sculptures”. Nancy
and I discussed this dream. Alonzo has
his work cast by Art Castings and Sculpture Works in Loveland, Colorado. Since my son worked for these entities since
his 16th birthday, we will endeavor to see if we can get some
assistance in realizing Alonzo’s dream.
I am happy to report that Alonzo is
treated ethically and appropriately. He
functions rather independently and is “in the system”, having the advantages of
the social safety net that our society currently has in place for the
developmentally and physically disabled.
Martin
Ramirez’s case is a bit
more clouded. He had been a laundry
worker in Mexico in his youth, and came to the U.S. in the early 1920’s, lured
by U.S. business interests who took advantage of immigrants looking for a
better life. He started to work for the
railroads, but because of his small stature, the strenuous work had a
deleterious effect on him and he eventually became indigent and lost the power
to speak. Ramirez was hospitalized in
Los Angeles and soon sent to the DeWitt Mental Hospital in Auburn, California,
north of Sacramento. In that facility, Ramirez was diagnosed as a catatonic schizophrenic. He entertained himself by drawing with
rudimentary tools on paper he made from scraps that were used on examination
tables in the hospital glued together with mashed potatoes and his saliva. These
drawings were disposable, from the perspective of the mental institution, so
Martinez would squirrel them away in his pockets and his room to prevent them
from being incinerated.
In 1954, Dr. Tarmo Pasto, Psychology and
Art Professor from Sacramento State College, recognized the talent in Ramirez’s
art and Ramirez presented him with a bundle of his drawings. Pasto prevailed on the hospital to spare
Ramirez’s drawings and give him permission to keep them. He visited regularly, bringing drawing
supplies and retrieving the drawings.
Pasto also took his students on field trips to the DeWitt facility,
among them was the young Wayne Thiebaud who marveled at the confident line work
in Ramirez’s work.
I was fortunate enough to make friends in
elementary school with Jerome and Matt Pasto, Tarmo’s two sons. When I would play at their home, Tarmo,
knowing that I was artistically inclined, would invite me into his studio to
show me his paintings. He also kept the
work of many mental patients there, including Ramirez’s drawings. Some of that collection made my hair stand on
end, but Ramirez’s work was straightforward and accessible to a boy my
age. It was eerie but not frightening.
Pasto used Ramirez and other patients’
art work in his Psychology classes at the college to illustrate how different
mental illnesses would present themselves in the art work of the
afflicted. He was so expert at this that
he was called upon to help diagnose patients who were uncommunicative, as
Ramirez was. Little did I know that
within a decade I would be taking classes from Tarmo Pasto and a host of nationally
recognized contemporary artists. Among
that distinguished group were 3 members of the Hairy Who, the Chicago Imagists who
influenced the work of Hollis Sigler.
Jim Nutt, spokesperson of this collective, stumbled upon Dr. Pasto’s
collection of these works in the storage bins of the audiovisual department after
Ramirez had died in 1963, the year after I began my studies, and was
captivated by Ramirez’s drawings. Pasto
had made 2 unsuccessful attempts to interest the Museum of Modern Art into
showing Ramirez’s work. With Jim Nutt’s
help, the two organized the first public viewing of Ramirez’s work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2ttSl1eM_s
Where
the history of Ramirez’s work becomes worrisome is when Nutt asked to purchase
Pasto’s collection of drawings by Ramirez.
This is not documented in any writings, but my professors told me that
Jim bought the bulk of the work for an undisclosed amount.
He then took the work to the Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago (which also
handled his and his wife’s work), and she sold it to clients. I have no idea what arrangement was made
between the gallery and Jim Nutt, but in my recent interviews with the principles of the Ricco/Maresca gallery in New Your City, there is suspicion that Ramiez's estate accrued no monies from the distribution and sale of Ramirez's art work during this period.
While the 2007 retrospective was on view, the museum’s curator, Brooke Davis Anderson, was sent an email from descendants of Dr. Max Dunievitz, former director of DeWitt State Hospital in the last years of Ramirez’s life. Dunievitz had kept approximately 140 of Ramirez's drawings and collages from the last three years of his life. Family members were unaware of them having any value and nearly discarded them after the doctor’s death in 1988. They were stored for nearly 20 years in his daughter’s garage. The heirs of Martín Ramirez challenged the ownership of this group of works, claiming that as his descendants, they were entitled to ownership of this newly unearthed work. Dunievitz and the Ramirez families came to a legal agreement in 2008, which includes the representation of this work by the Ricco/Maresca Gallery in New York City with the heirs having a percentage of all sales.
In October and November 2008, some of these drawings were concurrently exhibited at the Ricco/Maresca Gallery and the American Folk Art Museum. The catalogue for this exhibit was includes essays by Brooke Davis Anderson and Wayne Thiebaud, and is titled Martin Ramirez, The Last Works.
I have communicated with Ms Anderson who is very interested in my recollections. And on May 15, 2015, I had an extensive phone conversation with Frank Maresca, co-owner of the gallery that represents Ramirez's work and the interests of his estate. He shared with me a wealth of information that has put to rest many of my questions regarding the ethical treatment of this mentally-ill artist. I found out that Martin's family had a nephew visit him before he died. The family contends that Martin sent them examples of his art work, but that cannot be verified in any way. But in 2007, the Ramirez family brought suit against the Dunievitz collection and the Ricco/Maresca Gallery for the rights to Ramirez's work. Through a "terrible" process that was borne by the gallery's pocketbook, all of the work that Ramirez had made was tracked down and a complete catalogue of his work is being prepared. The question of ownership has been resolved. All parties who had possession of Ramirez's work have made arrangements to compensate Ramirez's estate. Here's how the legal sytem decided issues of ownership:
Because Martin Ramirez had no will (and could not have since he was not "of sound mind") none of his work should have been taken from him, even if he gifted it to any of the parties involved. Moreover, the State of California's Work contract for state employees specifically barred the acquisition of patient's property. Max Dunievitz was legally prohibited from taking Ramirez's work! These two facts sealed the fate of Ramirez's work. It was his, and only his, property. When he died that property became part of his family's estate. There was no malice in Dr. Pasto taking Ramirez's work, but he had no legal right to take it nor to sell it. Jim Nutt did not have the right to buy the work, and in fact he did not pay for it. The money he used to acquire the collection from Pasto came directly from Phyllis Kind. Nutt was remunerated by Kind for acquiring the collection, and he and his wife Gladys Nilsson kept some of the work, sold some of the work, and gave the bulk to Phyllis Kind. But again, no parties had title to any of the work that was then exhibited, sold, and distributed. After a year-long process of arbitration, the lawyers for the estate of martin Ramirez asked the Ricco/Maresca Gallery to continue to represent Ramirez's work because they had done a great job of promoting his work. Frank Maresca has been interested in Martin Ramirez's work for over 30 years and purchased one of his drawings from the Phyllis Kind Gallery 32 years ago. He has diligently chronicled Martin's work ever since.
A high point in Frank Maresca's career came recently when the US Postal Service issued five Forever postage stamps featuring Martin Ramirez's images on them! The stamps were unveiled at his gallery and was attended by over 500 people. The Vice President of the US Postal service spoke at the commencement, as did Roberta Smith and her husband Jerry Saltz, art curator and senior art critic for the New York Times. We spoke of the irony of an illegal alien from Mexico, a catatonic schizophrenic mental patient, being so honored at a time when there is such political debate about illegal immigration and those who do so taking resources in their medical care. I wondered aloud whether this was a big FU to the politicos who this slipped past.
The beauty of this story is that Martin Ramirez came to this country to provide for his family. Only many years after his passing, that dream has become a reality. The poor peasant who illegally immigrated to the US has finally been able to enrich his family as he had intended.
Dr. Pasto and Martin Ramirez
Martin Ramirez Forever stamps
Willem DeKooning’s case is more complicated. DeKooning had the good fortune of achieving world-wide recognition long before his illness was revealed. He made a very confortable living as an acclaimed master of Abstract Expressionism. The onset of his Alzheimer’s was not immediately diagnosed, so it is difficult to determine when his illness affected his work, or whether it had any effect on it beyond a maturing of his style. No one questions the later work of Renoir who was crippled with arthritis so badly his brushes had to be strapped to his hands. Neither are Matisse’s later papier colles or Degas’ last works while nearly blind. So the question becomes one of assessment of work by reputable critics when an artist is compromised physically or mentally. Physical degeneration does not seem to have affected the appreciation of Chuck Close’s work, but mental deterioration is harder for critics to accept. And one has to wonder if a world without such diagnosis would be as generous, or as cruel to an elder artist.
According to art historian Karen Wilkin, concerning the exhibit of DeKooning’s late work, "This show is not going to give you an accurate view of de Kooning. The paintings of the 1980s, when he was so ill and by all reports debilitated, are like the ghosts of what he was capable of when he was as good as anybody. It is clear there was a lessening of intensity, of impact, of inventiveness long before the '80s."
In contrast, according to Carter Ratcliff, Contributing Editor of Art in America, “The good paintings from the 1980s are kind of a summary of a whole career and style. They're quite empty, unlike the ones he was doing five years earlier, which were maybe a little overcrowded. They have the feeling of last paintings, looking back in a restrained way and trying to find the epitome of his style and lay it out in clear way."
1945
1985
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