Part 2 of 2. The Danger Of Judging A Book By Its Cover

The street level appearance of the house concealed a secret. The back of the house cascaded down a hillside in many levels. If you have ever seen the movie From Dusk Till Dawn, written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez, staring George Clooney, where, at the end of the movie, it is revealed that a desert bar, run by vampires, is perched at the edge of acers and acres of a cascading ravine that reveals a collection of assorted vehicles; eighteen wheelers and the bones of years’ worth of unsuspecting victims; well, it was kind of like that. Deceptively sprawling.

There were well over one hundred fifty paintings on display, but it was his condo on the beach in northern Florida that housed the biggest part of his collection. Being a building contractor specializing in United States embassies, he had built the building and reserved the penthouse floor for himself…and his art collection.

His office in downtown Birmingham also housed many works of art. Because of his government security clearance, it was a highly secured office in a high security building. Just getting into his office was like a scene from a Mission Impossible movie. No simple lock and key here, but then, this was no simple office. It housed an art collection that contained master works of artists from Monet to Renoir to Dali to Picasso. There was a particularly stunning Japanese ink drawing that was housed in its own beautiful wooden cabinet. Unlock the double doors, slide out the drawer, and behind a sheet of glass one could gaze at the ancient drawing.

When he gave us the tour, we saw the first painting he had purchased from me. It was still sitting next to its shipping crate on the floor beside a small Monet that had just arrived from a Paris gallery earlier that day. Seems that I was in excellent company.

In short order, this vibrant elderly collector selected another four of my paintings to add to his already overwhelming collection. He gave no thought whatsoever to where they might hang. He just loved collecting art. Afterward, we all readied to go to dinner. While our host was in the shower, his daughter stopped by. She looked around at my paintings and, pointing, said, “Please tell my father that if he’d like to buy me a birthday present, I’d like that one!” We relayed the message to our host, and he bought that one too, making it five paintings that night…plus dinner at The Club. The success of this visit led our to designing a custom-built trailer to transport showings of my paintings to collectors. The U-Haul lacked a certain “je ne sais quoi.”

The dialogue which lead to the sale of six additional paintings was opened because I did two simple things. First, I mailed the brochure, which sparked his second purchase, and second, I sent a bottle of wine with a customized label featuring his newly acquired painting as a Beau Geste. Our “sales associate” who decided that the “old pervert” was just a one-off event because of his age, saw the world differently than I did. She wrote up an order for a customer; I cultivated a relationship through which I sold six additional paintings and I had the pleasure of enjoying the company and hospitality of one of my most interesting collectors.

When the gentleman passed away in 2010, I was contacted by his estate to clarify the titles of some of the work he had purchased. His collection contains over four hundred paintings, many of them by master artists, all being tended by a private curator. The collection is housed in a cloistered museum where they will be displayed in perpetuity. I was informed that my paintings are part of the permanent display while several other works from the collection are being warehoused in temperature and humidity-controlled storerooms.

Every profession has their Never Judge a Book by its Cover stories. I imagine that we are all guilty of this at times. My employee dismissed this dynamic gentleman because he was eighty years old when he purchased the first of my paintings, which happened to be a nude. She judged this “book” to be a pervert. When I see a well-worn book cover, I assume that it must be a great read.