Between Two Worlds (The Lanny Budd Novels) by Sinclair Upton

Author:Sinclair, Upton [Sinclair, Upton]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781504026468
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2016-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

23

And Both Were Young

I

The Galeries Freycinet are strategically situated on the fashionable Rue de la Paix, and with money furnished by Lanny and his mother, Zoltan hired their two largest rooms for a month. This was a long time for a one-man show, but Zoltan was planning a campaign and was sure the public would keep coming. The first thing he did was to present a copy of one of Marcel’s small seascapes to the art critic of one of the great Paris newspapers; so, a few days before the opening, this gentleman published a two-column article about a painter who was taking his place as a shining light in the galaxy of French genius. Without any advertising or promotion, Marcel Detaze was forging to the front of French representationalists; in spite of all the fads and follies of a frivolous time, it was possible for sound and solid work to find recognition in the art worlds of both Paris and London. This article was illustrated by the Poilu, the Sister of Mercy, and the aforementioned seascape; before the month was over, the seascape was placed on sale at one of the near-by galleries and sold for thirty-five thousand francs.

This one article started the ball rolling, and the other critics didn’t have to be paid so much; there were even a few so important that they didn’t have to be “sweetened” at all. Socially prominent persons had to be visited and told about the forthcoming event. For that purpose Lanny and his mother came to Paris a week in advance and told all their friends what they were there for. At such a time one reaps the reward of having such a person as Emily Chattersworth for a friend; she would spread the word among key people, and no one doubted her judgment in a matter of art.

The fact that Marcel’s face had been burned off in the war, so that he had been forced to wear a mask, and that in spite of this handicap he had gone forward and developed a new style—this didn’t make him a great painter, but it surely made him a great subject for conversation about painting; it made him popular with persons who had to fill newspaper space with gossip and comment. It caused his name to stand out, and gave people a reason for attending a one-man show instead of races at Longchamps, steeplechases at Auteuil, or polo at Bagatelle.

So the opening day was a real occasion. Zoltan acted as master of ceremonies; looking as if he had been “poured out of the egg,” as the Germans say, precisely correct in his “morning,” his striped gray trousers, large silk tie, and boutonniere. His slightly florid light-brown mustache lent the right touch of artiness. He had hired at a fancy price the best-trained doorman in Paris, who knew everybody who might by any possibility come to an exhibition; this man was provided with a telephone in a booth, and upstairs was a messenger who would bring word to the expert, so that he might be waiting at the head of the stairs.

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