hoped,” she lied. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the gallery.” She tried to relax back in her chair, but her legs seemed to stick to the cushion, making it impossible to shift her weight without a major movement, a disruption she didn’t want. Blair thought she detected a slight smirk on Clio’s face but decided to ignore it. “Sales are going well. We have a wonderful collection of artists doing a range of work, not like a lot of downtown galleries where everything feels the same, but, as I’m sure you know, it’s a competitive business.”
“I haven’t been to galleries in the Village in I can’t tell you how long. Richard and I used to make a point of going several times a year, just to keep up with what was being shown. You’re now in SoHo?”
“No. We’re in Chelsea. Rents in SoHo have gone through the roof, and more and more dealers are moving to our area.”
“A little off the beaten track, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I guess it depends on whose track you want to be on.” Blair tried to sound clever, but her tone was defensive. “We’ve got great space, it’s just a little small for our current plans.”
“And what are those?” Clio rested her chopsticks on the porcelain holder to the right of her plate. Her erect posture seemed impossible to sustain.
“Well, we’ve had an exciting recent discovery. A sculptor from South America. Argentina.” She tried to sound professional, distant, but felt a bubbly excitement at the mention of his name. “Marco does wonderful bronze nudes.”
“I’ll have to come and see.” Clio sounded distinctly uninterested.
Blair stared at the oil painting on the wall in front of her of a haystack in a field that Richard and Clio had loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for its show on van Gogh in Arles. The canvas emanated a haunting light. This piece was part of the Pratts’ impressive art collection, paintings and sculpture acquired over the years at auction or from the well-established midtown dealers that remained a league above the Devlin Gallery. On the walls of Clio’s bedroom and study hung early Italian religious art, Masaccio, Gilberti, in ornate gilt frames. Downstairs, a pair of Dubuffet figures graced the entrance to the dining room. Several Picasso drawings as well as a “blue” period self-portrait hung in the living room along with portraits by John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, and Winslow Homer. In addition to the van Gogh haystack, a Georges Seurat park scene and one of Monet’s smaller images of a London bridge in fog filled the library. Even the downstairs powder room contained a Renoir oil of a fruit plate, worth more than the entire inventory of the Devlin Gallery.
“We were lucky to get Marco. He had an extremely successful show in Chicago. Several New York galleries went out to have a look. When he and I met, he said he wasn’t represented because he had never found a dealer ‘whose vision he admired and whose heart he trusted.’ Those were his words exactly. He’s really a poet as well as an artist. He wants me to represent him.”
Blair realized that the mention of Marco’s name had made her blush. Tilting her head down so that Clio wouldn’t notice the sudden flush to her cheeks, Blair mentally replayed the past twenty-four hours. Marco’s visit to her house in Sag Harbor seemed like a dream. It had been scheduled for only a few hours, a lunch meeting designed to clinch the relationship, but his jitney had departed for the city without him. How long he could stay without arousing suspicion was the more pressing question, although in truth, at this moment Blair didn’t care whether their budding romance was discovered. Marco’s magnetic narcissism drew her to him. Blair liked to imagine him at just this very moment lying nude on the weather-beaten deck, reading
Art News.
“What does Jake think?” Clio asked.
“About Marco?” She paused but caught herself from hesitating too long. “He’s
“I haven’t been to galleries in the Village in I can’t tell you how long. Richard and I used to make a point of going several times a year, just to keep up with what was being shown. You’re now in SoHo?”
“No. We’re in Chelsea. Rents in SoHo have gone through the roof, and more and more dealers are moving to our area.”
“A little off the beaten track, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I guess it depends on whose track you want to be on.” Blair tried to sound clever, but her tone was defensive. “We’ve got great space, it’s just a little small for our current plans.”
“And what are those?” Clio rested her chopsticks on the porcelain holder to the right of her plate. Her erect posture seemed impossible to sustain.
“Well, we’ve had an exciting recent discovery. A sculptor from South America. Argentina.” She tried to sound professional, distant, but felt a bubbly excitement at the mention of his name. “Marco does wonderful bronze nudes.”
“I’ll have to come and see.” Clio sounded distinctly uninterested.
Blair stared at the oil painting on the wall in front of her of a haystack in a field that Richard and Clio had loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for its show on van Gogh in Arles. The canvas emanated a haunting light. This piece was part of the Pratts’ impressive art collection, paintings and sculpture acquired over the years at auction or from the well-established midtown dealers that remained a league above the Devlin Gallery. On the walls of Clio’s bedroom and study hung early Italian religious art, Masaccio, Gilberti, in ornate gilt frames. Downstairs, a pair of Dubuffet figures graced the entrance to the dining room. Several Picasso drawings as well as a “blue” period self-portrait hung in the living room along with portraits by John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, and Winslow Homer. In addition to the van Gogh haystack, a Georges Seurat park scene and one of Monet’s smaller images of a London bridge in fog filled the library. Even the downstairs powder room contained a Renoir oil of a fruit plate, worth more than the entire inventory of the Devlin Gallery.
“We were lucky to get Marco. He had an extremely successful show in Chicago. Several New York galleries went out to have a look. When he and I met, he said he wasn’t represented because he had never found a dealer ‘whose vision he admired and whose heart he trusted.’ Those were his words exactly. He’s really a poet as well as an artist. He wants me to represent him.”
Blair realized that the mention of Marco’s name had made her blush. Tilting her head down so that Clio wouldn’t notice the sudden flush to her cheeks, Blair mentally replayed the past twenty-four hours. Marco’s visit to her house in Sag Harbor seemed like a dream. It had been scheduled for only a few hours, a lunch meeting designed to clinch the relationship, but his jitney had departed for the city without him. How long he could stay without arousing suspicion was the more pressing question, although in truth, at this moment Blair didn’t care whether their budding romance was discovered. Marco’s magnetic narcissism drew her to him. Blair liked to imagine him at just this very moment lying nude on the weather-beaten deck, reading
Art News.
“What does Jake think?” Clio asked.
“About Marco?” She paused but caught herself from hesitating too long. “He’s
Similar Books
