Restoration (44 page)

We stand in the crowd with arms raised and yell for throws as Endymion rolls by, the great parade of floats and marching bands
and dancing girls twirling batons. This night in February is cold and breezy, gumbo weather, but we’re warmed and shielded by the masses that have gathered all around us and press in close. I am Jean Lafitte, or “Jack the Feet,” as Rhys takes pleasure in calling me. And while she was supposed to dress as a fairy princess, in my opinion she better resembles an angel. She wears a frilly pink tutu over a leotard and tights, the layers of diaphanous netting reaching to her ankles and the soft satin shoes of a ballet dancer. She wears a rhinestone tiara and, harnessed to her back, wings made with goose and ostrich feathers. Glitter and smears of paint mask her face, and in the orange light of the flambeau carriers she burns for me as brightly as their torches do.

Because she is beautiful, Rhys attracts the attention of the riders on the floats, who deluge her with plastic beads and toys, and who gawk at her through the black holes of their masks long after the procession has moved past. One of them, high up on a throne, stands and bows at the sight of her. If not the king, he certainly is royalty. He wears a gold suit and a flowing red robe trimmed in animal fur. He, too, wears a mask.

He steps down to the edge of the passing float and the other riders move to let him through. He reaches out with his scepter and hands it to Rhys, who recognizes him before I do. “God bless the Hurricane,” she says. “Love you, Patch.”

“Love you, too, Rhys Goudeau, even if you did buy my house.”

It is midnight when we return to the old house on the bayou and embrace under the crape myrtles. Although Rhys has owned the property for several months now, she still treats it as though it belonged to Lowenstein, never entering the grounds without his or my permission. If she owns a key, I haven’t seen it and she’s never used it. We clear the gate and gently close it behind us so as not to wake him. Hand in hand, we tiptoe to his library window. A bulb is burning in the gooseneck lamp at his shoulder, and he sits with a book open in his lap and a snifter of cognac balanced on the arm of his chair. Rhys
hesitates at first, then raises a fist and lightly raps on the glass. “Mr. Lowenstein, I brought you some beads.”

He sits up, startled, and glares in our direction.

“It’s Rhys Goudeau, Mr. Lowenstein. If it’s not too late, I brought you some beads. Some Mardi Gras beads.”

He is a long time coming to the door, and I am grateful for the chance to pull her close again and put my mouth on hers. The lights come on and Lowenstein is at the screen inviting us in. “I thought we might share the wealth,” Rhys says, removing a fat cord of beads and putting it around his neck.

“Oh, dear girl,” he says.

“We just caught them at the parade. Aren’t they beautiful?”

“Oh, they are… they are beautiful… oh…”

We move to the library and Rhys tells him about our night, this strange, eternally tormented old man in a perfectly pressed dress shirt and raggedy pajama bottoms, hands shaking as he reaches to wipe tears from his face. It doesn’t seem to register with him that Rhys is costumed as Jacqueline and I Levette, but then he remembers something and his voice lifts an octave. “I have a gift for you, too,” he says to Rhys.

Crossing to the rear of the house, we pause in the center hall, where on one side Levette’s mural has replaced the many Drysdales. In silence we enjoy another look, then move on to his bedroom. A lamp burns on a bedside table, illuminating more paintings and books and furniture, the furniture deriving from antebellum Louisiana cabinetmakers. He tells me to bring over the chair standing in the corner and to place it next to the armoire across from the foot of his bed. “Now reach your hand up there, Jack, up over the crown. See what you find.”

I take them down one at a time and place them on the bed, in all some fifty rolled-up canvases. Rhys is overcome. The angel wings prevent her from sitting in a chair, so she clears out a spot on the edge of the bed and leans forward with her elbows resting on her thighs
and sobs so hard that glitter and paint cloud her tears and drip to the floor.

When I’m done, Lowenstein goes through them all and finds the one of the bridge.

“It can’t match your gift of the beads,” he says, shuffling over with the painting and handing it to her. “But I thought you might like to have this, Miss Goudeau.”

When my uncle, Joe Bradley, completed his long, distinguished career in the U.S. Marine Corps, he put the wars behind him and became an artist. Uncle Joe was the first Louisiana painter whose work I collected, and without him I doubt that I ever would’ve discovered the other artists whose stories inspired this book. I owe a huge debt to Uncle Joe and I wish to thank him.

I also would like to thank John Sanderford for introducing me to the paintings of his uncle, Edward Schoenberger, who as a young man made a significant contribution to the Federal Art Project in Louisiana. I spent several wonderful days with Eddie and his wife, Sylvia, at their home in Wausau, Wisconsin, and I’m grateful to Eddie for his willingness to entertain my many questions about his life and work.

I’m indebted to Jack and Frankie Kinsey of Dayton, Ohio, for helping me gather information about the great but vastly underappreciated Alberta Kinsey. I also want to acknowledge other family members of WPA-era artists from Louisiana who allowed me to interview them, most notably Franz Heldner and Paula Ninas. The artist John Clemmer and his wife, Dottie, made an important contribution to my research and have become dear friends; I thank them both. Clemmer’s recollection of his years as an instructor and administrator at the Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans made me wish I could travel back in time and walk the streets of the French Quarter that he knew as a young man. Another painter, William Arnold of Wakefield, Louisiana, welcomed me into his home and generously shared his memories of making pictures for more than sixty years. He and his wife, Doris, could not have been kinder or more gracious to me.

I thank the many collectors and dealers who told me stories about their favorite southern artists and contributed to my profile of Levette Asmore. Denise Berthiaume and Christy Wood of LeMieux Galleries were a tremendous help, as were Cindy Nicholas of Taylor Clark Gallery, Allain Bush of Bush Antiques, and Daria Atwell of the Charleston Renaissance Gallery.

The archives of the Historic New Orleans Collection, housed in the Williams Research Center, were an important resource, and I learned a lot by attending sales at the New Orleans Auction Galleries, the Neal Auction Company, and Hampshire House Auctions. The Ogden Museum of Southern Art mounted several excellent shows that featured works by WPA artists from Louisiana and provided valuable insight. In addition, my research assistant, Stephanie Boris, and my friend Robin Miller have my eternal gratitude for helping me run down many of the historical details that went into telling Levette’s story.

Finally, I wish to thank the conservator Blake Vonder Haar for being such a devoted and patient teacher. Like Rhys Goudeau, Blake can fix anything. Without her help I could not have written this book.