Like Yasser Arafat and Micah Carpentier, the circumstances surrounding the death of Faun Roberts are shrouded in mystery.
The traces of mercuric chloride found in her bloodstream point to foul play. Could this pestilence be explained by the deep, lush vermilions that characterized her famous series of paintings The Hall of Decrepit Flames? Roberts reportedly would ground powdered cinnabar by hand in order to make her own paint. A precise level of pigmentation and viscosity was as important to her as were her subjects and her motifs.
She also had one or two ardent and unstable enemies.
The ancient Chinese figured out the toxic formula of heating this most gorgeous of minerals. Benvenuto Cellini was hated enough by his adversaries that they slipped him a mickey of this blighted toxin. Though it wasn't strong enough to kill him it did effectively cure him of the clap.
Faun Roberts may not have been so lucky.
In 1934 at La Champmeslé on Rue de Chabanais Roberts met another American expatriate artist by the name of Ginny Retarne. Their affair was a wanton blaze of rapture and jealous recrimination. Diary entries from that period indicate that their turbulent liaison was not short on brutality and even outright violence.
Ginny was a small girl, fifteen years younger than Roberts. She had a rough manner, a penchant for swearing and a small collection of Shun carving knives. Neighbors often complained to the préfecture of late night arguments bordering on hysteria.
Though the evidence is circumstantial at best the Parisian press at the time was rife with odious speculation. In the course of writing my monograph on Roberts, my research assistant Patrice Nguma stumbled upon some incriminating (though far from conclusive) evidence.
A recent cleaning of the seminal Et Tu Ginnae revealed that in the subject's (presumably Ginny Retarne) right hand what was once assumed to be a bright orange dildo is in fact a 32 centimeter Kiritsuke carving knife.
Was this prescience, homeopathic magic, wish fulfillment, anxiety displacement, prophecy or was it simply just another a stirring portrait of an idealized lover seen as Joan of Arc.
Perhaps we'll never know but all the same the tragic premature demise of this dazzling early American modernist leaves all of us who truly care with the wistful question:
What if ... ?
She also had one or two ardent and unstable enemies.
Faun Roberts may not have been so lucky.
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| Ginny Retarne |
Ginny was a small girl, fifteen years younger than Roberts. She had a rough manner, a penchant for swearing and a small collection of Shun carving knives. Neighbors often complained to the préfecture of late night arguments bordering on hysteria.
Though the evidence is circumstantial at best the Parisian press at the time was rife with odious speculation. In the course of writing my monograph on Roberts, my research assistant Patrice Nguma stumbled upon some incriminating (though far from conclusive) evidence.
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| Et Tu Ginnae, Oil on canvas, Faun Roberts 1934 (private collection) |
A recent cleaning of the seminal Et Tu Ginnae revealed that in the subject's (presumably Ginny Retarne) right hand what was once assumed to be a bright orange dildo is in fact a 32 centimeter Kiritsuke carving knife.
Perhaps we'll never know but all the same the tragic premature demise of this dazzling early American modernist leaves all of us who truly care with the wistful question:
What if ... ?
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