In the spring of 1924 American expatriate artist Faun Roberts traveled to the north London suburb of Wembley to view the immense British Empire Exhibition. She was part of a larger, informal delegation made up of artists, writers and amateur diplomats.
Her initial interest in the exhibition was negligible but when Dudley Murphy and Man Ray offered to pay her expenses she jumped at the chance. She had been in Paris for ten long years and was dying to get away. Her constant poverty and compromised health made travel both impractical and prohibitive.
The music of Elgar was everywhere and together with the overbearing atmosphere of British triumphalism, the experience seemed more comical than anything else.
That was until she saw the Choingnt Dakini and her attitude shifted dramatically.
Coming from a strongly Episcopalian Midwestern background Roberts had little prior knowledge of the Eastern religious traditions. Through Soutine and Stein she had a vague idea of Judaism and through Picasso she even flirted with Catholicism but about Buddhism she knew absolutely nothing.
Seeing the voluptuous female deity Choingnt with her rounded breasts and coquettish pose completely redefined for Roberts the meaning of the word sublime. If it wasn't a religious experience it was something damn near close because for the next 13 months Roberts made no less than 75 paintings that referred directly to Esoteric Buddhism's emphasis on gender malleability.
Most of the paintings have been lost for in the spirit of worldly detachment Roberts destroyed all but a few of the works. Those that remained are hard to track down but I was recently contacted by the son of the famous Detroit collector Mont Tehelngut. He had learned of my work through the internet and had contacted me in order to assess the value of the two Roberts' that were in his father's collection.
One was clearly a fake.
The other was this!
The music of Elgar was everywhere and together with the overbearing atmosphere of British triumphalism, the experience seemed more comical than anything else.
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| The Choingnt Dakini, Tibetan, 16th century |
Coming from a strongly Episcopalian Midwestern background Roberts had little prior knowledge of the Eastern religious traditions. Through Soutine and Stein she had a vague idea of Judaism and through Picasso she even flirted with Catholicism but about Buddhism she knew absolutely nothing.
Seeing the voluptuous female deity Choingnt with her rounded breasts and coquettish pose completely redefined for Roberts the meaning of the word sublime. If it wasn't a religious experience it was something damn near close because for the next 13 months Roberts made no less than 75 paintings that referred directly to Esoteric Buddhism's emphasis on gender malleability.
Most of the paintings have been lost for in the spirit of worldly detachment Roberts destroyed all but a few of the works. Those that remained are hard to track down but I was recently contacted by the son of the famous Detroit collector Mont Tehelngut. He had learned of my work through the internet and had contacted me in order to assess the value of the two Roberts' that were in his father's collection.
One was clearly a fake.
The other was this!
 |
| The Begging Bowl, oil on canvas, Faun Roberts 1925 |
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