“The King Cole Bar is not where Dali held court at the St. Regis, but the now gone cocktail lounge was the place. On Sunday evenings the hotel would close the lounge exclusively for Dali’s us, and court started usually 6PM sharp. The King Cole Bar was a constant place of meetings and other gatherings as Dali often did not want guests into his suites…..as for the mural Dali had little or no feeling for it, remarking that it was decorative, and Parrish was a mural painter (which in Dali’s world was no compliment).”

Many thanks Louis for these corrections and explanations. It’s always better to have a primary source and I’m grateful.

Unfortunately it means also that I’ll probably not have a chance to post a couple of blogs that I’d like to do about Wolfgang Everling and his splendid work on Dali’s Divine Comedy and update (even correct) some of the information I posted about Dali and the St. Regis Hotel’s King Cole Bar until I return, but I’m sure the millions of readers who live for my postings will be patient.

I am doing very well on the final polish to Artful Dodgers and doing more writing for the next book, Persistence of Enigma: The Unbelievable Salvador Dali Market. It is always exciting to work on these projects, especially now that the first book is pretty much done.

The economic situation here in Ireland is not good. Last week eleven young people emigrated from the tiny village of Clonmany here on the Inishowen Peninsula. It’s as if the nineteenth century was back and there was no future here for the youth. Of course, my own son emigrated to Rio de Janeiro, but his wife’s family is there.

Until I get the next chance to reconnect with the outsid world, I’ll raise a Guiness in your honor.

An article in the March, 2012 Art & Antiques magazine by Henry Adams gives the following information about the mural.

“At the urging of his friend Nicholas Biddle, the business manager for John Jacob Astor IV, Parrish created the mural in 1905 for the bar of Astor’s Knickerbocker Hotel on 42nd. Street and Broadway.  Initially, he is said to have been hesitant about producing work for a barroom setting but agreed because he was excited by the challenge of creating such a large painting. Also, the fee of $5,000 was very welcome to a young artist who had just married and was building a home in Cornish, New Hampshire. When he executed the paintings, Parrish had only a small studio, and he had to work on each of the three panels separately. Even then, they would only fit when they were placed diagonally in the room.

That merry soul King Cole, shown with a drinking bowl, was a natural patron for a bar. Bartenders have circulated the rumor that the smirk on King Cole’s face and the reactions of his courtiers were caused by the King’s flatulence, but Parrish himself denied this, protesting that ‘when I painted it my thoughts were 100% pure.’

After the paintings were installed, the bar of the Knickerbocker became a popular gathering place for stage celebrities, such as John Barrymore, but it closed when Prohibition  was enacted, and the hotel was converted into an office building. The paintings languished for a time in storage; then were lent to the New York Racquet Club; and finally, in 1932, were transferred to the St. Regis Hotel (build by Astor in 1904), where a room was designed around them by the architect William A. Mackay with Parrish’s guidance.”

What I don’t know is whether Dali knew the hotel had been built the year he was born, and what he thought of the Maxfield Parrish “Old King Cole” that dominated the room–except when the Divine Dali was holding his own court.

The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970. By then I was already very active in environmental affairs because I had been one of the founders of one of the first environmental citizen-based organizations in 1968 at the University of Florida where I was a PhD Candidate. In 1980, I was featured speaker at the 10th Anniversary Earth Day celebration in Colorado because I was at that time the President of the Colorado Open Space Council–now the Colorado Environmental Coalition.

During my presidency the organization (a consortium of forty associations and government agencies) grew tremendously and had many successes. The greatest was the passage of the Colorado Wilderness Bill of 1980 that put 4.5 million acres of Colorado into the Wilderness system. That was the result of the efforts of many people, frequent meetings with Senators and Representatives and the support of Governor Dick Lamb.

My next position was as a Trustee of The Nature Conservancy Colorado Chapter for seven years and President for two years. During that presidency I helped get 13,000 acres of pristine mountain land at 9,000 ft. purchased and turned into the Mueller State Park. I then hosted about 200 natural scientists who did a complete inventory of all the natural components of the park.

During these years I was also putting together the private Westerness Wildlife Preserve on the west side of Pikes Peak. One result of all this time and effort is that my daughter Heather is now Dr. Heather–the Wildlife Ecologist for Boulder (Colorado) Open Space and Mountain Parks with over 43,000 acres of wildlands where she is responsible (with her staff and rangers) for all wildlife. She is responsible for tracking the mountain lions to change the batteries in their radio collars, and so much more.

Now my two grandsons spend time at Westerness and are learning about the natural world from their mom and granddad. It’s all a very thrilling and rewarding part of my life over the past 44 years.

Happy Earth Day! I hope you take it as seriously as I and my family do.

What a revelation in art writing–an unpretentious statement! I have written in several columns and in my forthcoming Artful Dodgers: Fraud and Foolishness in the Art Market that much writing about art is precisely that–Art Bullshit. I find that all too much of it is exclusive rather than inclusive.  I always wrote my columns, books and magazine articles in a first person narative style that is essentially storytelling. That way,  every reader can “get” what I’m saying without having to speak the art insider’s language. 

I also beleve there should be a lot more humor in both art and writing about it. I know Salvador Dali would agree.

For at least a good snicker, go to www.museumofconceptualart.com/about.html.

Recently a client from Mexico City (no, not Sr. Zepeda) brought me two ink drawings that were attributed to and appeared to be signed by Salvador Dali. I knew when I viewed the photographs in advance that they were not genuine. None-the-less, to be totally responsible and do due diligence I asked to personally examine them.

My client brought them to Santa Fe and, sure enough, I found numerous additional clues that I could not see in the photographs. All confirmed my original opinions and also convinced me that the two drawings had come from Barcelona forger Manuel Pujol Baladas. The final clue was that each exhibited an ink stamp verso that showed a crest and the words “MINISTERIO DE CULTURA – DIRECCION GENERAL DE BELLAS ARTES BENES CULTURALES.” The stamp looked genuine, but carried no information about the agency or government it represented. Shouldn’t it be something like “MINISTERIO DE CULTURA DE ESPANIA” ?

 I have seen many forgeries from Baladas and all exhibited what looked like official stamps on the back. You can read more about Baladas in Mark Rogerson’s 1987 book The Dali Scandal: An Investigation. It details only a small part of the subject, but does not offer much information that I consider just plain wrong.

My client was disappointed, but I never have people reject my professional opinions and the session was pleasant.

When I got up to the house, I looked in the yellow pages for APPRAISERS. Not surprising, is it? I used to be the only game in town, but that’s no longer true. I was astounded to see that there are 18 listings for personal property and/or art appraisers. One is a business that also appraises real estate! Many are galleries and others are private individuals. Of them all, there are three of us who have certification from professional societies. Only three. I have seen reports and heard testimony from the other two that caused me to tell their stories in Artful Dodgers under the “Appraisal Fraud” heading. All of the other so-called appraisers are not trained, tested and certified!!!!

How is the public to know who is real and who is not? Some “appraisers” are “certified” by mail-order certification “societies” that do not train and test members. They still get initials to put after their names. It’s a very sad state of affairs and strengthens my contention in Artful Dodgers that it’s too late for the real appraisal societies to build a true profession of appraisers. There are just too many fake ones who don’t know how to do a real appraisal. Who do you think suffers when something goes wrong?

My thoughts go back to the trips I made to Honolulu as the expert witness for the U. S. Justice Department in the federal court case of United States v. Center Art Gallery–Hawaii in 1990. On the first trip I spent a week in the “war room” at the US Attorney’s office examining artworks attributed to Salvador Dali–hundreds of them. When I was finished, I flew over to “The Big Island” for a week of snorkeling at Kealakakua Bay, exploring the island and meeting interesting people.

The second visit I testified in the trial and set a record for the time spent in cross-examination in federal court. On that trip, I had planned to have a week of R & R to recover, but it was all spent in the witness chair and I didn’t get to experience the delights of Kauai. A lot about that trial will be revealed in my currently-being-written book Persistence of Enigma: The Unbelievable Salvador Dali Market.

Another tale that will be told there is the rest of the story about the Center Art Gallery Trial–the sale at auction of over 1,200 “Dali” prints! When the New York Times called for a quote about that bizarre event, I said, “This makes the Federal Government an accessory to future art fraud, but I’m delighted because it gives me guaranteed job security.”

I’d be happy to go back to Hawaii, especially because my brother and sister-in-law live in Kauai. It’s not a place I’d chose to live, however. My good buddy C. H. Boyd is in the process of moving to Maui as I write. I’d go to see him too.

OK, so I’ll stop thinking about Hawaii and turn my thought to the upcoming pleasures of Ireland.

Yes. It was the second day of the Battle of Glorietta Pass six miles up the pass from my home and the Union army that had forced-marched down from Colorado via Ft. Union was engaged with the Confederate army commanded by General Henry H. Sibley (in a drunked stuper in his personal traveling ambulance). Sibley had marched out of El Paso and up the Rio Grande to take mostly abandoned Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

Sibley was on his way to Ft. Union to seize supplies; invade Colorado and take the gold fields and then invade California to obtain a Pacific (unblockaded) port for the Confederacy. 150 years ago today it all ended in my front yard when a small Union force under Major Chivington (a mad Denver preacher) cut across Glorietta Mesa and arrived on the rock outcrop across the canyon from my front door.

Spread out below was the Confederate wagon park. Chivington’s men lowered themselves down the canyon wall and burned about 180 wagons. They captured about ten Confederate guards and only one man was killed when a powder wagon blew up. Essentially the battle and the invasion were over. For months the Confederates straggled down the Rio Grand back to Texas without supplies, wagons or mules and horses. It was a grim retreat.

At noon today a group of Civil War enactors will shoot muskets and cannon off and there will be presentations at Pigeon’s Ranch at the center of the battlefield. At 6:00 today I’ll go to the beautiful little adobe church in our village of Canoncito at Apache Canyon for Mass. I’m not Catholic, but this is a function of my mostly Hispanic community. Many of the families have been in New Mexico for 200 to 400 years.

My property is an in-holding in the Pecos National Historic Park Canoncito Unit. What I can’t understand is why so many Civil War battles were fought in National Parks.

Along with the recently finished film, which was put on hold in an incomplete state in 1947, there will be a lecture by Dr. Lawrence Blumberg and an exhibition/sale of 19 “rare and limited edition” prints signed by Roy Disney.

So what are these prints? Presumably they are reproductions of original story board images that Dali created, or they might be reproductions of the cells created to make the movie. They are “rare” only because Disney decided to make a smallish edition. The fact that they are signed by Roy Disney means nothing. He had no part in their original creation (they’re Dali’s work), but did sponsor the completion of the movie and its 3D computer digitization. No one should be surprised that a new way was found to capitalize on Dali’s work and, with a great deal of hype, present it as much more than it actually is. After all, in the art market, everything is about perception.

The original story board images were drawn in India ink by Salvador Dali and I have seen a great many of them. The first I saw at a fine collection in Gross Point, Michigan. The next time I ran across them was under very different circumstances.

I visited the Disney-Dreamworks Studios with federal agents and had a meeting with Michael Eisner and a couple of his guys. We were there as part of an investigation for one of the federal court prosecutions for which I served as an expert witness. Eisner was neither nice nor helpful, but we did learn that a quantity of the DESTINO story board images had disappeared some years earlier. In other words, those I examined in Michigan and elsewhere were stolen property, even though the current owners did not know it.

Knowing what I do now, if I again encounter one of the drawings, I’ll state in my Appraisal Report that it is stolen and therefore cannot pass with good title and therefore has a negligible market value.