Portrait of the Artist in 14 Photos -- #8

1960s

Richard gets hip in a black shirt.

Gone (for the moment) is the stiff, starched, collared white dress shirt that has anchored his wardrobe his whole life. It’s a surprisingly bold move by Richard, befitting a socially restive Sixties. The white business dress shirt has been a powerful symbol of class, wealth, sobriety, and uniformity since the Victorian era. But “the times, they are a changing,” as singer Bob Dylan warns the Establishment in 1964. As an artist, Richard enjoys a bit of social leeway; everyone knows artists are non-conformists.  But perhaps too shaped by the weight of his upbringing, Richard stops short of full rebellion. Coat and tie remain.  

He’s now in his late 50s.  

Portrait of the Artist in 14 Photos -- #7

circa 1960

Richard Blow in his workshop at Villa Piazza Calda. Richard is at the top of his art game – inspired, inventive, successful, famous. He’s cheated death, surviving a bloody car accident and a scary bout of amnesia. Finally recovered and back in sunny Santa Margherita a Montici, Richard sits at his workshop desk, sports jacket and striped tie, silk handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket, sketching and designing a surreal pair of birds. Post-War Italy is booming. American tourists are flocking to Rome and Florence, enticed by Hollywood hit films like Roman Holiday starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck joy-riding the city on an irresistibly cute Vespa scooter. Italy is sophisticated, sassy, affordable. Just like Montici mosaics.

Portriat of the Artist in 14 Photos -- #6

1944

Lieutenant Richard Blow, (far right), Naval Air Station, Bunker Hill, Indiana. He’s grown a moustache, his caps is rakishly tilted right, his jaw square and set.  But he stands in the back of the ranks, end of the row, unobtrusive, just another guy; a small cog in a giant, well-oiled machine that at this point in the war has trained and graduated over 3,000 pilots in basic flying. The millionaire enlistee has become a common soldier. Gone is the villa, the servants, the butler, the gardener, the silk sheets and personal privacy.  Gone from his life are wife, sons, paint brushes, art gallery soirees. In a few months, his chess piece will be moved forward to the bloody Pacific theater.  As he sweats at attention on an airport tarmac in the Indiana summer heat, some 5,000 miles away the British Eight Army is driving Germans from Florence, Italy, taking over Richard Blow’s Villa Piazza Calda. The sweeping view across the Arno valley that captivated Richard is perfect for wartime reconnaissance and observation. Germans shell the Villa but do minimal damage. Before they retreat, the Nazis round up 250 Jews in Florence and send them to the death camps. Marya, now safe in America, will not be one of them.

Portrait of the Artist in 14 Photos -- #5

1941

Richard Blow May 1941, visa photo for trip to Brazil.  He looks serious, almost somber. His personal life is a mess. Bowing to social pressure, and the imminent arrival of second son David Jeremy, he and Marya have formally tied the knot (1938). He’s got a second kid, David, but neither he nor Marya are built for parenthood.  His marriage is on the rocks. World War II has already started in Europe with Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939. Marya and Richard are refugees from Italy, their beloved Villa Pizza Calda taken over by Mussolini’s Fascists. They’re now living in a New York City apartment. Japan is getting ready to attack America. Why Richard makes this flight to Rio de Janeiro at this particular moment is a mystery to me. Get away from fights with the wife and a crying three-year-old baby? Practice his flying skills in preparation for enlisting in the military?  (he pilots his own plane down there). Maybe a secret mission for the U.S. government?  (not a completely crazy conjecture -- his brother George is working in the Dept. of the Navy in Washington DC. The family is politically connected, and his father was a U.S. Naval Academy grad and famous Spanish-American war hero). Whatever the answer, Richard’s mind in no longer on painting.

Portrait of the Artist in 14 Photos -- #4

circa 1936

Richard and future second wife, Marya Mannes in Italy. He’s got an uncommon smile on his face. She’s got a broad grin. Both have managed to ditch their first spouses. They’re starting afresh.  Everything is new, exciting again. It’s a Bohemian, laid-back arrangement; no one is talking marriage The strict, stratified society they were both born into is now in the rear-view mirror. He’s impressed by her intellect, her free spirit, her art (she’s a sculptor), her joie de vivre.  She’s impressed by his elegant villa, his haunting and lyrical paintings, his sartorial style. He’s still wearing a tie, but he’s moved to a sport coat for the hot Mediterranean summers. His hair is thinning, but he’s still a tall, handsome catch.

Portrait of the Artist in 14 Photos -- #3

1926

Wedding photograph showing a tall, imposing, 22-year-old Richard and his 19-year-old bride. He’s dressed straight out of the Fred Astaire song Putting on the Ritz -- “high hats and arrowed collars/white spats and lots of dollars.” The song celebrated the London Ritz hotel; Richard does his celebrating at the grandaddy Paris Ritz. They’re posing but comfortable; they belong there. In terms of wealth and social position, they could be characters in Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby novel.  After a breakfast reception there, he and his debutante bride are married at the American Cathedral Church in Paris. The American colony in Paris turns out in force, along with European royalty and the J.P. Morgan banking family.

Portrait of the Artist in 14 Photos -- #2

1923

A 1923 passport photo of 19-year-old teenage Richard. Dark-suited, slicked-down hair, tight tie, reserved expression., the stiff upper lip of the upper crust. A rising Junior at Princeton, Richard is headed back to Europe on a luxury steamship for another summer there, touring France and Germany before returning via Quebec. But he’s restless -- moving away from architecture towards his true love, art.

Portrait of the Artist in 14 Photos -- #1

Artist Richard Blow wasn’t publicity shy. His name appeared regularly in the Society pages of the New York Times, New York Daily News, and Chicago Tribune. He hosted art buyers in his Manhattan gallery, and schmoozed with the rich and famous.

But he left behind surprisingly few public photographs of himself.

I spent 14 months intensely researching his life. As a investigative journalist, I honed my research skills on printed media – books, magazines, journals, newspaper morgues, court records, Dewey Decimal library cards, basement microfilm/microfiche readers, the Library of Congress, and federal archives. I’m also damn good at deep diving the digital record via specialized search engines on top of general Google sweeps. (My digging also included reaching out to living relatives in Richard’s extended family – no response).

All that time and effort ended up netting me just 14 photos.

Shown above is the first of my thin, 14-photo scrapbook, “Portrait of the Artist as a Young (and Old) Man.”

circa 1910

Photograph of Richard as a young boy with his mother Adele. It’s a formal, staged photograph, resembling an oil portrait. He’s dressed in white collar and tie as befitting the son of a wealthy American industrialist; there’s a feeling of quiet, Victorian domesticity to the composition.  They’re photographed playing a board game at the family’s 2,000 acre Deer Park estate in LaSalle, Illinois, 90 miles southwest of Chicago. The Estate included a 26-room mansion, a four-car garage, a caretaker's house and a private fire station. 50 men maintained the estate grounds, and Richard was driven around by a chauffeur named “Dickie.”  It’s a calm, safe, ordered life, a present filled with luxury, a future filled with promise.

Michael Schmicker

“Bid or Pass?” Game #1

Let’s have some fun!

I’m launching a new game for Montici Society Members.  It’s called “Bid or Pass?, and it’s designed to both entertain and educate. Our goal is to help you become an informed Montici art lover/collector by learning more about a Montici piece and some comparables.

Rules of the game are simple:

1) I select from the “Market Watch” page one Montici artwork currently being offered for sale.

2) I do a comparative market analysis on the work.

3) Society Members vote whether they would “Bid” or “Pass” on it at the asking price.

Ready to play? Andiamo!

Montici artwork for Sale: “Circular Flower Bouquet”  (MSID)

Asking Price: $6,000

Dealer:  eBay

Seller: “Kyunart” has been selling on eBay since Jan. 1999,  and enjoys a 100% positive feedback rating from past customers. Per their website: “Kyunart Inc. offers fine art of quality to the Internet market. All items offered come with a money back guarantee. The representations stated in the description of an item concur with the authorship, state and condition of the actual item. A certificate is provided for each item.”

Analysis:  Everybody loves flowers. Floral arrangements have been a popular theme in pietra dura art stretching back to the invention of the Florentine technique in the Medici era. They’ve come to decorate ceilings, chapel walls and palace floors, wooden cabinets, and tabletops.. The best examples find buyers and sell well.  

Late 17th century floral arrangement from the Medici Grand Ducal workshop. $15,700, Christie’s, London, Dec. 2007.

Seller Kyunart calls the “Circular Flower Bouquet” mosaic “rare,” and they may be right. In our Society database of 300+ Montici artworks, we have just two floral arrangements. That’s it.  Two. Could there be a hundred Montici floral arrangement mosaics still out there? Possibly. We’ve only found and catalogued 300 of the estimated 1,500 mosaic works Blow produced in his career. But it’s unlikely. Richard Blow wasn’t that interested in producing traditional, pietra dura flower arrangements. He wanted to infuse Florentine mosaics with a modern iconography – cubism, surrealism, metaphysical art.

The other work in our database is a circa 1970, pop-art, graphic Montici that barely qualifies as a “floral arrangement” comparable. It’s listed as “Untitled (Bouquet)” in the 2019 Wright-Edelman auction catalogue. The medium-sized, 9 x 8 inch mosaic sold for a rather astonishing (to me) $8,750.

Your Turn — BID or PASS?

Would you bid or pass on this Montici mosaic at $6,000?

Michael Schmicker

P.S. Until our“Comments” button for Michael’s Blog is fixed, you can use the “Contact Us” page to send me your decision, and rationale. I’ll report the results when we post the next “Bid of Pass?” game.

A Montici Shows in Brooklyn (actually 2)

Richard Blow loved Manhattan. But if he were living today, he might head for Brooklyn.

In the 1950s and ‘60s, Richard operated from three gallery spaces, all on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. In those years, it was the heart of the New York art scene. Manhattan still is the art money hub, but today Brooklyn’s Bushwick district is where the creative magic is.  Young artists can find cheaper rents; a more stimulating, multicultural, post-industrial vibe; and a growing population of young Millennial art buyers. Richard was a smart marketer as well as a gifted artist. Despite his millionaire sensitivities, Richard’s art from the start was middle-class affordable – and with some exceptions still is. In my imagination, he’d go to Brooklyn for both the intellectual stimulation and the sales.

In fact, he’s already there.

Richard Blow, ““Still Life". Brooklyn Museum. © artist or artist's estate

The Brooklyn Museum was the first major museum in America to exhibit his pietra dura wall plaques and tables.

The now legendary, “Made in Italy” branding movement launched in the U.S. in 1950 with a traveling exhibit. “Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today.” Richard was part of that joint U.S.-Italy sponsored show (along with future Italian iconic brands Gucci and Ferragamo).

Its first stop wasn’t glitzy Manhattan; it was working class Brooklyn.  When the 12-city tour ended a year later, the Italian Government gifted to the Brooklyn Museum two Richard Blow pieces.

The two works are not currently on display. But I went to the Brooklyn Museum’s online website and downloaded the images for you.

The first is a wall mosaic (above). The Museum’s 10 x 8 inch “Still Life” (Accession number 54.65.4). is one of 33 works in that still life genre that we’ve uncovered and logged into our Society database – and the earliest still life we’ve found. Richard created and executed it in the infancy of his eventual 26-year career. The mosaic is technically pre-Montici – a true rarity (the Museum notes makes no mention of a Montici logo). It’s graphically bold, sophisticated, fresh. What’s missing are the colors; the Museum jpeg is small, and only B/W (copyright worries). Some day when I’m back in Connecticut visiting my brother, I’m going to make a special trip down to the Brooklyn Museum and see if they’ll let me inspect the original work.  

Richard Blow, “Tabletop” Brooklyn Museum. © artist or artist's estate

The second Brooklyn Blow is a piece of furniture. Seventy years after its creation, this Richard Blow tabletop (above) remains strikingly modern.  I found this photo on the Brooklyn Museum website a year ago; recently I logged in again and couldn’t find it. I’ve sent an email to the Museum to inquire about its status.

Richard produced pietra dura tabletops from the very first days of his mosaics period. Historically, pietra dura tables were a dramatic, grand staple of the Medici Opificio workshop. Bloomberg Business writer James Tarmey recently wrote a fascinating story of one of the first ever produced.

“In 1568, Francesco I de’ Medici, heir to the Grand Dukedom of Tuscany, commissioned a table designed by the artist, architect, and writer, Giorgio Vasari. At the time, Vasari was one of the most famous artists in Florence. The Medici family had already enlisted him for projects ranging from murals in the Palazzo Vecchio to the design of the first buildings of the Uffizi…. It took more than 10 years to build, and cost a spectacular sum. “Putting it in terms of its comparative wealth, you could buy a painting by Titian— the greatest master of his day— for much, much less,” says Benedict Tomlinson, a London art dealer. “At its time, it was a vastly expensive work.”

It still is.

The 400-year-old, half-ton, semi-precious stone table owned by a long line of royals went up for auction in June 2018 at an asking price of $11.6 million dollars (legs extra).

The most expensive Blow Montici table sold to date cost a mere $22,500 (Sotheby’s 2016).  Suddenly, that sounds like a bargain.

Richard’s tables racked up their own accolades during his lifetime; the New Yorker magazine called them the “handsomest” Italian tables on the market.

If you’re a Brooklyn Millennial looking for something Mid-Century Modern hot, keep your auction eye peeled for the next Montici table.

Michael Schmicker

Lampooning Lastrucci

Bravo to Lampoon Magazine.

No, not the American satire mag National Lampoon. We’re talking about the uber-chic, Milano-based, Italian lifestyle magazine Lampoon. They recently published a delightful, insightful profile on Bruno Lastrucci and his son Iacopo.

Here’s writer Nicola Baroni’s captivating lead:

“Two and a half centuries after it sunk into oblivion, Bruno and Iacopo Lastrucci rediscovered the site where yellow chalcedony was once extracted — a typical material found in Medicean panels realized with the Commesso Fiorentino technique. The two artisans — a father-son duo — followed ancient maps that led them to the metalliferous hills inland from Cecina, on private property in the natural park. Rucksacks on their backs, they sought the exact spot for years. «At times we would find a stone that was more yellow, other times more violet», explains Iacopo. «In the end we found the exact spot smaller than a tennis court with a vein of rock sticking out just a little from the ground, visible for only a short stretch. This is where they stocked up on yellow chalcedony in the sixteenth century». 76-year-old Bruno Lastrucci heads the last Commesso Fiorentino workshop, which still works stones using artisan methods and Medicean techniques to make true objets d’art. Between the Unification of Italy, when the Opificio delle pietre dure became a restoration laboratory and many mosaic makers who worked there opened workshops, and the end of the twentieth century, there were dozens of these laboratories in the city. Today, Lastrucci is the art’s last bulwark, producing works of art for collectors around the world, not two-bit souvenirs….”

Got you hooked?

We certainly were.

Bruno, of course was Richard Blow’s favorite mosaic maestro and closest collaborator in the heyday of the Montici workshop. The article provides deep insight into the intense and immense labor and craftsmanship required to produce a Richard Blow/Montici quality pietra dura artwork. It also reminds us that, in the 40 years since Blow’s death, Bruno and his son Iacopo have continued to produce masterful pietra dura works of art.

Click here to read the full article.

We’ve added a permanent link to this Lampoon article on our Research Page. There you will also find a link to the Lastrucci studio and current mosaic works by father and son.

 It’s a small miracle -- Medici-quality, Florentine mosaics are still being produced today.

Michael Schmicker

True Color

They almost look like two different Montici mosaics.

But they’re the same artwork.

Blame the wild color difference on the internet.

We don’t have the time or money to physically attend Montici auctions and personally view the artworks. Instead, we mostly view them as Web jpegs.  The mosaic photos are posted online by sellers; auction tracking services; Pinterest and Facebook posters; and in digital publications.

How color accurate are these public jpegs?

Were they manipulated before posting to increase color, light, clarity, contrast? We don’t know.  How accurate is the color display on our own computer screen?  We’re not sure. We’ve never calibrated it.  

So if we come across two photos of the same mosaic, which one is closest to true color?

We came across this “Mosaic Fish” jpeg first (above). We downloaded it from the website of an auction sales tracking service. The fish looks colorful enough, but a bit muted, dark. It was sold by Rago in 2011 for $1,240. Did the tracking service get an original jpeg from Rago, or simply copy it from the Web?  Whatever the case, we in turn downloaded the image from the tracking service and saved it to our Society database. With no known competing image, it became our accepted standard for the correct color.

Two weeks ago, I came across a second image (above). Bonhams auctioned it off in January 2021. It fetched $5,731. At first, I thought it might be a variant. The Montici studio commonly produced 5-6 different versions of the same design, with small detail changes. But studying it closely, I conclude it is the Rago mosaic, returned to market. The only difference I can find is the colors.

But the color shift is substantial, from cool to warm. And the fish eye moves from flat white to pearlescent, highlighting the mosaic’s true beauty

I’m guessing this second Mosaic Fish is a closer, more accurate color rendering of the original mosaic.  Why? Because  I got this jpeg straight off the Bonhams website, no intermediary. Established auction houses use professional photographers to digitize their offered artwork. One of the unsung but important benefits of the recent, blockbuster Edelman auction at Wright is their accompanying catalogue. It provides what should be true colors for 86 different Montici mosaics, since the gallery has access to the original mosaics and a professional photographer. (Incorrect spatial orientation is another problem. Sometimes an image is accidentally flipped left/right; or even upside down in the case of one Blow artwork we tesearched.)

We have now updated our Master Catalogue with this new photo; and continue to contrast and compare any duplicate jpegs we discover of the same work.

Our long-term goal? Convince auction houses to share with the Society a copy of their original, high-res jpegs.

Until then, take our colors with a grain of salt.

Michael Schmicker

Fakes and Copycats

It was inevitable.

The rising popularity of Montici mosaics and their accelerating auction prices has spawned copyists eager to cash in.  

In 2020, two separate mosaics appeared on EBay, advertised with the attention-grabbing headline as “Richard Blow/Montici pietra dura.” Both images showed known Blow designs – the first, a watermelon with knife; the second, two women on a beach. Apparently, India is now churning out Montici copies.  Once you visit the site, you quickly discover they’re reproductions; the accompanying detail sheet clearly states that.  Not that an educated collector would need warning. You immediately spot the unimaginative selection and variety of stones, the cheap craftsmanship (cement oozes from the joints). Not to mention the selling price (under $500), far below the price of a genuine Blow mosaic. Nobody is fooled. But we’re disappointed by eBay’s decision to allow the seller to still market them under the bait-and -switch headline “Richard Blow Montici..”

In early 2021, the company began hawking two more Richard Blow Montici copies– the one, a jeweled hand; the other, Richard’s 1973 abstract, “OSU Balloon,” donated to Oregon State University and featured in their 1976 catalogue (see below).

“OSU Balloon”

Richard Blow 1973

Copy

Made in India 2021

But this time, the advertising headline didn’t include the words “Richard Blow Montici”. Instead, the title reads “Pietra Dura rare royal art collectible heirloom Christmas gift decorative sculpt.” The site goes on the explain that it is offering copies of “…."Giuseppe Fiaschi", "Richard Blow Montici", "G Ugolini", "Giovanni Montelatici", "Pablo Picasso", "Amedeo Modigliani", "Salvador Dali", "Giuseppe Zocchi" and many other world-famous artists on abstract, nude, surrealism, cubism, impressionism, landscape styles.”

And so it continues. Four and counting….

Yet viewed in another way, I guess it’s a compliment. Copyists only copy things that sell.  And Montici mosaics certainly do.

Michael Schmicker

NOTE: CLICK THE “OLDER” LINK BELOW TO READ MORE BLOGS

The $129 Montici

We can buy art for love, but also hope for profit. It’s only natural.

How likely is it?

Here’s a fun story of a $129 Montici mosaic that grew to $4,500.

“Three Women and a Ball” was created in Richard Blow’s Montici workshop in 1960.  We don’t know the original price it sold for.  But eight years later, on Aug. 21, 1968, it popped up for sale at the Stonington Art Gallery (Connecticut) where a collector named Rosamond Mattiello bought it for $129. We know because she tucked her cashed check in the back of the frame.

It’s a charming piece; good size at 8.5 by 10.5 inches. It’s unsigned, but incised on the reverse “MONTICI/FIRENZE ‘60”

 What happened to the mosaic for the next 50 years?

We don’t know. Perhaps the buyer hung it on her bedroom wall and enjoyed it for a half-century, but when she passed away her heirs shopped it. In any event, on June 10, 2018 -- almost exactly a half century later – a buyer paid $4,500 for the mosaic at Auctions at Showplace, a Manhattan, NYC gallery.

Out of curiosity, I checked a website that calculates the value of a dollar, adjusted for inflation. You would need $969 today to buy what $129 bought in 1968.  

Bottom line: If you bought it in 1968, your return on investment more than beat inflation. You covered your original cost and netted a profit of $3,500 (in today’s dollars). If my math is correct, that’s a 364% return, representing an average annual return of 7.25% -- a bit better than the stock market at 6.8%.

Not to mention the pleasure of having three beautiful ladies entertain you daily for a lifetime.

Michael Schmicker

P.S. Montici prices have accelerated in the last two decades. If you’re a Society member, see “Report #1: Historical Market Analysis 2000-2019”

Richard Blow Meets Saul Bass

Saul Bass, 1959

Richard Blow, 1960

Mid Century Modern is hot today, as is MCM icon, Richard Blow.

In the 50s and 60s, Blow exhibited alongside Noguchi, Olivetti, Farina and other giants in the movement. He imbibed the ethos, and was influenced by the art/graphic trends of the moment. When he saw something visual he liked, he translated it into stone. He might spot it in an advertisement ,a painting in a museum, a drawing in a book, a photo in a magazine or newspaper. He was always looking around him for iinspiration for his next mosaic.

I recently stumbled across an article on Saul Bass (1920-1996), an American graphic designer and Mid-Century Modern icon celebrated for his movie titles and posters (not to mention the corporate logos he created for AT&T, United Airlines, and Klernex). Bass did the poster for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960); as well as Hollywood box office hits like North by Northwest (1960), Exodus, (1960), Oceans Eleven (1960), and, late in life, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. (1990). Among Bass’ most famous work was a poster for Director Otto Preminger’s 1959 film “Anatomy of a Murder” (seven Academy Award nominations).

The Anatomy poster seemed oddly familiar to me. Why? Suddenly it hit me.  I hopped on the computer, opened our Society Master Catalogue of 300 Blow mosaics, scrolled down to the “People” genre, and  Ecco! - there it was.

“Bikini Bather.”

This Blow mosaic sold for $3,500 by Christie’s in London in 1960 — just one year after Bass’ Anatomy movie poster appeared. And we know Blow himself had a direct hand in creating this particular Montici mosaic. It is inscribed verso “MONTICI/FIRENZE '60/Richard Blow.”

Both bodies lay there in pieces, the same splayed fingers.  same neck crook.

Is the similarity pure coincidence? Or was Blow’s Bikini directly inspired by Bass’ Anatomy? One future MCM icon borrowing from another? I go with the latter.

What say you? Use the Contact Page and tell us your thoughts.

.Michael Schmicker

Norwegian Wood

We’ve got 13 different Richard Blow-designed tables in our Society database.

When I first saw this one, the Beatles song “Norwegian Wood” popped into my brain. As a suburban American teenager growing up in the early 1960s, I always associate that song with European sophistication, a casual love affair.

I once had a girl
Or should I say she once had me
She showed me her room
Isn't it good Norwegian wood?

The table evokes in me the same “cooll cat” vibe, with its clean, cream stone, sculpted brass legs, and stylishly arranged rows of pointed pyramids.

It sold in March 2013 for $5,625, and is logged in our master catalogue under the boring MSID title “White, Four-Row Pyramid Table” But it will always be ‘cool” to me.

Michael Schmicker

The Acrobat

Wow. Love it.

This elegant, sophisticated pietra dura. mosaic popped up on EBay on Sept. 18, 2020, with an asking price of $2,500. Per the seller, it’s a Montici executed by Calderani in 1956, it sold for $2,750 on November 6, 2020.

The seller was very knowledegable regarding Montici mosaics, as evidenced by the professional description accompanying the artwork:

It perhaps explains why the piece was priced so low — it’s missing its Montici logo.

“…This Richard Blow pietre dure plaque is missing the iconic ‘M’ cipher, which apparently became dislodged and lost sometime during its previous ownership. I acquired the work in its current condition. The hole for the missing Murano glass cipher ‘M’ is there, and is three millimeters in diameter, which is consistent with the diameter of the cipher signature possessed by all other known Montici works, large or small. The frame is clearly an original Montici. The design is definitively in Blow’s style, with the characteristic subtle touches of his vision, such as the bowl held for the acrobat’s reflective gaze, the charismatic selection of stone, and the intricacy of the overall composition. On the reverse is the signature ‘X – 1956 Calderani’. This form of dating & signature (of the shop and/or craftsman that implemented the design) appears on the verso of perhaps a dozen Monticis I’ve observed, virtually always from the 1950’s, and usually with either Calderani’s or Fracassini’s name. A majority of them date from the period following Richard Blow’s auto accident in the US in 1954, the severe injuries from which kept him from returning to his atelier in Italy until 1957. I have included photos of the versos of two other Monticis that also possess this dating & signing – these are the last two of the seven photos, and are not representations of the work for sale, which itself is shown in the first five photos. This work measures 10.25 x 9.875 inches framed, and 6.25 x 5.875 by sight. The frame condition is good, with normal wear commensurate with its age. The plaque has an apparent repair to the left lower corner, which may be related to the missing cipher, and a few scratches.”

I personally don’t buy reputed Montici mosaics missing a logo But given the seller’s excellent, detailed analysis— and the fact that it sports a correct size hole where the logo would normally be placed — I would have been tempted to bid. Montici or not, it’s a wonderful piece

Michael Schmicker

Muriel King

Portrait of Muriel King in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery by Aline Fruhauf-1939.

Letters between Muriel and Richard Blow suggest a deep, perhaps intimate, relationship. While she may not have been a classic Marilyn Monroe-style Fifties glamour girl, given her short-cropped hair and thin figure, she could hold her own in social circles with her wit, vivacity and bohemian attitude. And as a fashion designer for Hollywood stars like Katherine Hepburn and Rita Hayworth, she knew how to choose and wear her clothes ( some of her evening dresses are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art). . It’s no wonder the twice-divorced Blow found her a kindred soul.

Michael Schmicker

Mystery Symbol -What is it?

What is it? That strange symbol appearing in the bottom left corner of the work.. I don't know. Despite hours of research, it remains a complete mystery to me. The enigmatic symbol is one of  five objects portrayed in pietra dura on the  Montici mosaic "Cat Boot."  Richard gifted the art piece to my mother in the late 1960s to thank her for helping him market his artwork through her Farnam Hill Antiques shop. It's an unusually large mosaic at  14.25 x 18.25 inches, signed by Renzo Fracassini, one of Blow's favorite stone masters. Four of the objects in the surrealistic, black-spotted, assemblage are recognizable -- a  fish, a sinuous snake, a reclining cat, and a lady's old-fashioned button-up boot.  All five objects are decorated with odd, black spots.  But what in the devil is the fifth object?  The top half of a human figure, with arms raised?  a crescent moon with appendages? Or maybe it's not an object but an occult symbol, or letter from some arcane alphabet?  I welcome  any and all suggested solutions from our Montici  Society members.  Whatever it is, I'm determined to unravel this mystery. It's driving me crazy.

Michael Schmicker

Fortune and Fame

Muriel was Richard Blow’s Publicity Director for his New York city gallery (in addition to her artistic career as a painter and fashion designer). As PR director, Muriel could tap into her own, personal circle of wealthy and sophisticated friends and business clients.

Muriel had established herself as a top designer of women’s high fashion. In the early 1930’s, in the depths of the Great Depression,, She was featured in the December 1933 issue of Fortune magazine - at that time the premiere business publication in the world.

It’s hard to believe now, but pre-World War I, all women’s high fashion came from Paris. There were no recognized American designers. Stores advertised their dresses as “straight from Paris”. In addition to her private studio she set up in Manhattan, Muriel’s designs were some of the first to be shown in the new “Altman’s Shop of American Design”, one of the new department stores on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Fortune magazine said in the article “Muriel King is the biggest news in the US haute couture. At Altman’s, she has shown whole collections using American fabrics exclusively.” Born in Seattle, Muriel was passionate about design and had lived in Paris while drawing designs of Paris collections for Vogue magazine. What she did was to totally revolutionize fashion design for American women with American fabrics. 

In 1959, she pivoted from fashion design to painting. Before that, she had made paintings and drawings in her spare time, on weekends and holidays, without the intention of making it a career. The shift to full time artist consumed the rest of her life until her death in 1977. But she never lost her fashion touch.

She lived right next door to us. I still remember seeing her one summer when she was in her Seventies, sitting under a spreading New England maple tree, a beautiful silk scarf draped around her shoulders,  working on a  wonderful pen and ink drawing of a Greek outdoor cafe. The drawing eventually graced my brother Michael's wedding invitation in Honolulu.

John Schmuecker