PALPITANT TO PASSION

After five full years, a Fulbright and two generous research grants I think I know more about the early modernist painter Faun Roberts than I know about myself.

I had no idea when I started this biographical project that I would grow so intimate with my subject. Poring over her letters, her diaries, her paintings and drawings has immersed me in a strange, deviant world that both shocked me and filled me with awe. What I did not anticipate when I began this intellectual journey was that I would ultimately grow to truly despise the object of my inquiry.

Gertrude Stein

Roberts was petulant, petty, insecure, vindictive, narcissistic and shamelessly dishonest. The more I learned about her the harder it became to find anything redeeming about her. She may have influenced Picasso but it was with an oily, hubristic disregard. She undoubtedly fed the imagination of Max Jacob but her cruelty nearly drove him mad. Even Gertrude Stein was repelled by her character and I believe that is precisely why she was buried by history and had remained obscure until I rediscovered her.

However, the most disconcerting aspect of this whole enterprise has been my relationship with Roberts' work. After a prolonged period of absolute veneration and wonderment I have reluctantly come to the realization that Roberts was tediously repetitive, redundant, shallow and shrill.

 

The Queen of Cyprus no. 16. Oil on canvas, Faun Roberts, 1919 (Private collection)

To my horror, what I formally found thrilling I now find utterly repellant. What initially seemed transgressive now seems like formulaic, recycled sapphic scenarios of delicately restrained sexuality. 

 After the initial jolt at discovering early 20th century homoerotic imagery I slowly came to realize that Roberts was merely appropriating 2000 year old Attic vases and Pompeian frescoes. Stein saw this, was mildly amused, purchased a few small drawings but ultimately realized that it was merely a fleeting infatuation. Roberts lacked the rigor of Picasso, the range of Matisse or the graphic brutality of Braque.

After five long years of research I regretfully confess that I have devoted my energy to nothing more that an historical footnote.