@schulmanphotography #geraldcantor
When we allow our minds to careen wildly through our ancient memories, genuine treasures appear. I think that is why I remembered my drive around and through the bends of Sunset Blvd in a 65’ Mustang. I had a sense of airlift like a take off. I turned off on to Greenway Drive in Beverly Hills with grand expectations towards a treasured destiny. I landed at the mansion of art collector extraordinaire Max Palevsky.
I remembered strolling down Park Ave. feeling like a delicate Borzoi with a gait from the gods. I was tickled like a Ken Kesey induced fantasy about streaming confetti of billions of one dollar bills swirling from the skies on to the Avenue. I stepped into the lobby of art collector extraordinaire Gerald Cantors building.
Both experiences would eventually make me feel overwhelmed by the mass of unattainable wealth winking at me as my hosts waltzed me through their shrines to art history. It was part of the hundreds of moments where the rooms were occupied by me, my subject and the ultimate displays of modern art history. I never missed an opportunity to caress the canvases and the sculptures that seemed to be begging for my eyes to love.
Many years before Ben Stiller’s “Night at the Museum”, there was the animated film “Closed Mondays”. I used to imagine I was the main character; a fat squishy mound of clay dancing through the world’s greatest museums. Today, the animated character sits quietly behind my right ear whispering riotous stuff as I enter fabulous rooms of art. It is a bit like having Jimmy Stewart’s “Harvey” as a friend. The collections come alive. I dance. The subjects wonder when I am to begin my photography.
When I remember these moments it feels like my career was like a run on a Wham-o Slip and Slide. Certainly it was not always that adolescent. But decades later I have realized that this personal and photography immersion into collector’s fortresses of private worlds with ecstatic collections had fantastic life altering affects for my life as a young photographer.
The two powerful collectors shared a passion for beauty and possession among the world’s great art community. They were both champions in their industries. They shared as tastemasters do, an eye for similar art. Yes Cantor was among the crowned champs of Rodin. But Palevsky had an eye for some Rodin too. I was given entrèe to their treasures.
Collectors can be like John Fowles(The Collector) obsessively passionate. They may embrace their possessions like a child would his/her Raggedy Andy/Ann. They may privately stir the heavens like James Cagney’s “White Heat”, “Made it Ma, top of the world”. But for whatever the art collector may be, when they have shared his/her passions with me, It really doesn’t matter why they covet acquisitions like precious possessions. I am the privileged soul who gets to sing to their beauty.
When I entered Palevsky’s Spanish styled home, the first thing he did after “hello” was to march me over to the Paul Outerbridge Kodachrome nude and begged me for my opinion.
Of course I knew the photographers work well. But it is an oddity when collectors and curators want an opinion from me. I was a photographer of fabulous art personalities. Why that assumes I am a savvy genius I have not a clue. But oddly, I know what I know. I think my passionate swirl of words won Max over more than my feeble intellectual discourse.
When I first encountered the Jawlensky, it snagged my eyes for the portrait I needed to make. Love and passion mingle in a room of collectibles in the most intellectual sensual marriage. As we strolled through eye popping Leger, Picasso, and an array of centuries of art, I motioned Palevsky to stand where I needed him to stand: Palevsky and the beautiful Jawlensky. I shushed Max with a wave. This was the snap.
@schulmanphotography #maxpalevsky
Cantor walked me right over to Rodin’s Thinker. I fell in love with the shadow it made.
Just a glimpse was all I needed to know that some part of the “Thinker” was to be my snippety snap snap for the day. Rodin ruled the moment. But Leger, Picasso, Matisse and more made for an art lovers dream.
Two days, a year apart. But not a square inch of the extraordinaire expansive homes didn’t reveal art history’s history. Treasures lived in these homes that collectors and curators may never know about. I was privileged to espy some secrets.
I am not a documentary photographer. I am totally aware of the missed moments in these environments. I probably needed to record more of the art history that lived on these walls. But I did record my moment and so much more.
When you consider that you have one snap in mind available. You realize there was never a rat a tat tat like a machine gun. There is merely the howitzer in mind ready to unload one single frame.
@schulmanphotography Gerald Cantor with his Rodins